Optimism time!

Hey MGoBlog team,

Thought it might be fun to list what would reasonably need to happen on order for Michigan to have a B1G division championship season. I've got: dramatically improved interior OL play, inferior outside OL replacements that still perform above expectations, better QB decision making (fewer interceptions), adequate WR replacements for graduating seniors, improved DL play, and status quo the rest of the way. Follow up question is, what are the odds of these things happening and can we see any historic examples of these sorts of improvements in just one year? Or are we just screwed and should hibernate until basketball season?
Best,

Stephen Bowie

Uh. Let me blow the dust off my optimism beanie, place it upon my pate, and spin the propellor.

…

I feel… marginally better. All right, let's tackle this. If Michigan's going to win the division they have to at least split their dual road games against MSU and OSU and then hope misfortune befalls the one they lose to a couple times. Oh, and beat Penn State and Northwestern and not, like, blow it against Rutgers and Minnesota.

How do they do that? Probably the same way they beat Notre Dame and nearly beat Ohio State last year: Devin Gardner playing like the baby of Denard and Tom Brady. The run game is just not going to be good enough to rely upon. Things that need to happen:

Magnuson and Braden are at least okay. Or Cole or whoever ends up playing tackle.

The interior line is not a complete shamocracy, and someone can pick up a blitz. Reducing bad decisions from the quarterback is at least 50% on reducing the number of opportunities to make bad decisions under pressure.

Gardner increments. 8.6 YPA, 450 yards against OSU, 60% completions… Gardner does not have to go particularly far to be B10 championship quality even if he has a heavy burden.

The defensive line can hold up against mean ol' OLs. The DL wasn't an enormous problem until Ondre Pipkins went down and Ohio State's terrible matchup came to town. With Henry back and still on an improvement kick and the losses eminently sustainable (Washington inexplicably did not play as much as he did as a junior and Black was way, way out of position by year's end) plus Michigan's initial DL rush starting to bear fruit, improvement here is likely.

Pass rush has to exist, in a serious fashion. I'd be more comfortable about this if Ryan was still your edge threat and Clark was bookending him. As it is, increments from Beyer and Clark plus added aggression also seem to bode well here.

A competent safety has to be found opposite Wilson. Your guess as good as mine.

Probabilities: dodgy, very dodgy, likely, likely, 50/50. If you told me the OL would be like a C+ I'd actually be pretty positive about this season… but man, that's a long way to go from an F-, down Lewan and Schofield.

Wait you think this was on purpose?

Dave Brandon isn't a terrible negotiator, he seems to get what he wants, so presumably he wanted this home schedule. Is the point so that we alternate between having all of our difficult games away one year, then having them all at home the next? That way every other year we presumably have a great run that gets us to the B1G championship? The easy early games are obvious schedule padding...

Dave [ed: not Brandon]

I am taken aback by the idea Dave Brandon is a sly fox who always gets his way. It's true the first thing he had to tackle—stretchgate—was seemingly done with aplomb, but in retrospect since the USC case the NCAA hasn't done anything to anybody of note that didn't involve 1) multiple lies from the head coach about NCAA violations or 2) horrible horrible felonies. You or I could have piloted Michigan to a slap on the wrist once the various improprieties turned out to be 15 minutes of extra stretching and grad assistants looking in on summer practices.

Since then:

• Michigan hired Brady Hoke, possibly because negotiations with Jim Harbaugh went poorly. That "all that glitters is not gold" line from the press conference lingers as bitterness over those negotiations breaking down.
• Michigan gave Brady Hoke a top ten contract when he was not in demand anywhere else and said he'd walk to Michigan.
• Michigan and Ohio State got stuck in opposite divisions with a crossover game, thus guaranteeing that Michigan would have the hardest schedule in their division over time had they lasted.
• Michigan played Alabama for less than they would get for a home game. The head-staving by Alabama made no financial sense, as Michigan traded a huge TV event and a game with ticket prices that were 50-100% higher than home game tickets for an outlay parsimonious enough that bringing the band was a big problem.
• Michigan wore a series of clowniforms. Fan pushback was so severe on this that they have dialed it back out of necessity. Meanwhile, Michigan can't even get uniforms that are, you know, uniform from Adidas.
• Notre Dame cancelled the Michigan series. They punked Brandon along the way, blindsiding him and getting themselves the last home game in the series after getting the first when the teams resumed.
• Michigan gave Al Borges a 300k raise. I mean. Gotta retain that guy.
• Michigan replaced Notre Dame with Arkansas. Look at future MSU and OSU schedules, which feature Oregon and Alabama and Oklahoma and Texas, for comparison.
• Michigan got stuck with MSU and OSU away in the same year. Not only that, they get to travel to MSU twice in a row.
• Michigan couldn't get Mitch McGary's suspension reduced. OSU DE Noah Spence is going to miss three games for testing positive for X or something like it, this after an appeal that reduced the punishment from a whole year. Meanwhile, the NCAA reduced the penalty for McGary's transgression two weeks after he received it. Michigan still got rejected by the NCAA.

With rights fees negotiated by the league, Brandon's main accomplishment as AD has been to raise ticket prices. Any bro in a suit could have done this. Any time he's had to interact with another human in an effort to protect Michigan's best interest or bottom line he's either lost or not even tried. (Night games are not an accomplishment. Networks aren't like "Michigan at night… pshaw." Michigan had been actively resisting them for years.)

His biggest negotiation wins are things that are nice for the bottom line but don't actually have any impact long term. And they're probably attributable more to the capacity of Michigan Stadium than anything else: the Winter Classic and this upcoming Man U-Real Madrid friendly.

So. While it's possible Dave Brandon wanted this home schedule—after all, he is personally responsible for the Horror II—it's more likely he just got run over by the Big Ten, because that's how things go. Things make much more sense if you think of Dave Brandon as Lucille Ball than as Gordon Gekko.

Has Michigan been the victim of B.S. penalties by the NCAA more than any other program?

...at least for the last decade?  Specifically, I am thinking about the two obvious instances, which are 'Practicegate' and the recent McGary clusterf---.  Both of these seems ludicrously disproportional in the severity of punishment compared to the actual crime.  To compound matters, you don't need to look very far to see far more egregious punishment (e.g. Jameis Winston, Johnny Manziel, etc) go completely unchecked. 

Of course, the other nuance to this is that Michigan seems to be doing it to themselves.  If they didn't so willingly 'play ball' and try to be as open and transparent as possible, would they even be in some of these messes?  It seems to me the days of trying to play by the rules is long gone, and if the NCAA isn't even going to attempt to maintain an ounce of consistency, why would Michigan continue to get hammered while most others skate by?

/Rant.

But in all seriousness, has Michigan been the most unlucky/attacked program by the NCAA compared to the actual transgressions that have occurred?

In terms of proven allegations versus what appears to  be the standard, USC would have an excellent case just on the strength of a recent NCAA punishment docket that looks like this:

1. Penn State, pre-softening
2. USC
3. Penn State, post-softening

…

astronomical unit

…

1,000,005. Jim Tressel lying to the NCAA at least four times about illegal Terrelle Pryor benefits
1,000,006. North Carolina not even really being a college for its students.

Michigan's stretch-gate crap was essentially nothing but bad PR. Given the way that went down and how the Freep creeps knew exactly what to FOIA it is extremely likely that was an inside job. By the time the NCAA got done with that they were specifically calling out the original article as sensationalized and inaccurate. The punishment was something like a 2% reduction in practice time and the loss of a grad assistant or two. I have no problem with the results of that investigation. It was a  joke that turned up some technical malfeasance and was treated as such.

The McGary thing is just terrible luck and the NCAA being the dumbest organization on the planet. Plenty of other athletes have gotten nailed for Violating The Special Spirit Of Sport.

As to your point about not playing ball and just cheating your ass off because you'll get away with it… well, yeah. That is obviously the move. When the best team in the country is going into every year knowing they have to cut like ten guys before fall and it doesn't impact their recruiting, the way to the top is obvious: ruthlessness and lawlessness. By the book, USC probably got what they deserved. They feel aggrieved because almost literally everyone else is doing it and getting away with either nothing or minor penalties.

90% of the crap Michigan goes through they do to themselves. The NCAA is not the problem.

Michigan's picked up a commitment from NH SF/SG Aubrey Dawkins, a 6'4" sleeper sort just discussed in this afternoon's recruiting post. The son of Stanford coach and former Duke star Johnny Dawkins, he picked Michigan over Dayton and will come in this fall.

Informative update coming.

GURU RATINGS

Dawkins has the kind of rankings you expect from a guy with a placeholder photo many places. 247 has him a three star and the #67 SG, Rivals an unranked three star. ESPN and Scout still have him a two-star member of the class of 2013.

SCOUTING

Dawkins took a prep year, so much of his scouting is old. ESPN hasn't updated his profile since last February. What they saw then($):

…ideal frame for the scoring guard position with excellent length. He does a terrific job of facing up his opponent and blowing by him to get to the basket. … can knock down the 3-point shot and his release looks relatively smooth…  must get better handling pressure while dribbling. His handle can get sloppy when defenders get into him-especially when he goes left. His jump shot is solid, but as he gets stronger it needs to get more consistent for the scoring guard position.

That is just about it for scouting reports before his prep year. The major sites didn't collect any this year, either, but fortunately the NE prep school scene has spawned a number of regional sites that track the various D-I players hanging around.

So we know Dawkins had a bust-out performance in February of this year in the NPSI tourney, which is apparently a thing where all the fancy pants schools draw sabres and joust. Three different outfits took note. NERR:

The six-foot-six post-graduate had all parts of his game clicking.  He was hot from behind the arc and athletic in transition, but equally important was the level of energy he was able to provide his team on both ends of the floor.  He finished with 28 points, 7 rebounds, and 3 steals.

Roundball Rundown:

…breakout performer over the weekend in Providence. Sporting a quality physique and playmaking abilities at the tin, the one question mark surrounding the North Carolina native has always been in his shot making from behind the arc. The son of Stanford head coach, Johnny Dawkins, the younger Dawkins erased all questions surrounding his long range attempt and in his final outing in Rhode Island, hit on four 3’s and at one time, had scored 28 of his squad’s 52 points. …definite mid-major plus recruit, at the very least.

And Cox Sports:

Aubrey Dawkins was perhaps most outstanding. The lanky big man can play all three perimeter positions, and has improved his outside shooting to the degree where burying the three pointer is expected when left open.

Adam Finklestein mentioned Dawkins first in the video accompanying that quote, speaking thusly:

He showed his length and athleticism that everybody knew about. Everybody knew he was a great defender. He handles and passes the ball well enough to play all three perimeter postions. But what was critical to his performance was how well he shot the ball from the three point line. That was the big question mark in his game, and he was virtually automatic with his feet set from downtown.

An athletic guard around 6'5" who can shoot and slash but isn't going to cross a dude over and get to the rim—sounds like your archetype there is Tim Hardaway, Jr. Dawkins has had plenty of time to get on radars and did not until very late, so don't expect freshman fireworks.

That said, he is legit bouncy.

While he's not GRIII, he's got the midair pause going on a few of those alley-oops. Also, he finishes with both hands in some seemingly awkward ways.

A guy with good size and athleticism flying under the radar implies a lack one outstanding skill that puts him in recruitable Bin A or B or C. If you ask him about himself he claims to be a jack of all trades:

“I think my game is an all around game. I don’t think I do anything especially good. I do a lot of things well. Taking it to the basket, shooting from outside, high IQ, value the ball, athletic. I think that about sums it up. Make the best play, not settle for outside shots, take contested shots, do anything I can to win really.

He told Dayton's Rivals site the same thing nearly word for word($).

Scouting video put together by UMHoops shows a guy who can attack off closeouts but the one time he's asked to straight-up beat a guy in an iso situation (late shot clock) it looks awkward and ends up in a turnover. On the other hand, his shooting looks at least serviceable in this small sample size; have to figure Beilein can make him decent or better.

FWIW, Dawkins is self reporting he is 6'6", 185. He's reported anywhere from 6'4" to 6'6"; if he has added an inch or two that would be nice.

STATS

In high school, Dawkins averaged 19 and 7 for a team that sometimes did things like score 25 points in an entire game (17 of those were from Dawkins).

At New Hampton, Dawkins averaged about 13 points a game, which led the team. Prep stats can be funky, as those teams are often loaded with multiple D-I prospects. Mitch McGary had trouble even starting for his despite being Mitch McGary.

OFFERS

Michigan's main competition for Dawkins was Dayton, the A-10 squad that just reached the Elite Eight. He had a number of other low-major offers. Rhode Island, another A-10 school, also apparently offered. Nevada was interested.

If you're wondering why Dawkins didn't play for his father, he was direct about that before his senior year at Palo Alto:

“It’s a hard school to get into; I don’t care how good you are, you’ve got to have the grades to get in. I’m not going to go there.”

All right then.

VIDEO

In addition to the clips above, here are some highlights from Dawkins's prep year:

You can watch a replay of one of Dawkins's NPSI games for one dollar here.

PREDICTION BASED ON FLIMSY EVIDENCE

With Michigan's two wing slots thoroughly occupied this fall, Dawkins will compete with MAAR for minutes behind Caris LeVert and Zak Irvin, and then again with MAAR and any 2015/2016 recruits when LeVert and/or Irvin heads to the draft… at least at the SG spot. Michigan may go with Kam Chatman or Cole Huff at the 3, should Huff commit.

As a coach's kid with a nice frame, Dawkins has the potential to be a nice 3-and-D wing for Michigan with an upside similar to THJ's, minus an inch or two of height and vertical.

UPSHOT FOR THE REST OF THE CLASS

Michigan has one spot left and looks set to spend that on Nevada transfer Cole Huff. If things break down with Huff they would likely bank it for next year unless they really want a 4 or 5 to come in right now. If they're willing to take a transfer who has to sit it appears that need is not severe.

With Signing Day and spring practice in the rearview mirror, Michigan's roster should remain basically intact until fall and possibly beyond. With the media cottoning on to the enormous hole in the roster created by the last Rodriguez and hybrid Rodriguez/Hoke/Process classes, it's time to update Attrition Watch.

2009

A last look at Rodriguez's first full class. Starter-level contributors are italicized; (sometimes projected) NFL draft picks bolded.

Jeremy Gallon, Justin Turner, Taylor Lewan

Played Out Eligibility: Will Campbell, Craig Roh, Denard Robinson, Vincent Smith, Brandin Hawthorne, Jeremy Gallon, Taylor Lewan, Quinton Washington, Michael Schofield, Cam Gordon, Fitz Toussaint, Thomas Gordon, Brendan Gibbons

Didn't Take Fifth Year(1): Mike Jones.

Transferred for PT (3): Vlad Emilien, Je'Ron Stokes, Isaiah Bell

Academics/Not Being Nice (3): Justin Turner, Tate Forcier, Adrian Witty

Injury (1): Teric Jones

Left Football: N/A

This class lost a little bit of its luster every time Toussaint tried to pick up a blitz, but this is still a class you can do excellent things with as long as you surround it with other talent. It features two bookend NFL tackles, the season receiving yardage record-holder, Denard Robinson(!), and six to eight other important contributors. Your 11-2 blip is built around these guys.

2010

DOOOOOOOOOOM! Your Freep class.

Dorsey, Gardner, Vinopal

Enrolled (3): Devin Gardner, Jake Ryan, Will Hagerup

Did Not Take Fifth Year(2): Richard Ash, Jordan Paskorz

Played Out Eligibility(4): Jeremy Jackson, Drew Dileo, Jibreel Black, Courtney Avery.

Transferred for PT (6): Ricardo Miller, Cullen Christian, Marvin Robinson, Carvin Johnson, Jerald Robinson, Ray Vinopal

Academics/Not Being Nice (5): Demar Dorsey, Antonio Kinard, Austin White, Davion Rogers, Conelius Jones

Injury (3): Terry Talbott, Terrance Talbott, Christian Pace

Left Football (3): Ken Wilkins, DJ Williamson, Stephen Hopkins

Nothing miserably bad has happened to this already miserably bad class since August. Will Hagerup has hung on to a roster spot; Ash departed after getting his degree, as did Paskorz. That leaves three of 27 players on the roster, including the starting QB and most dynamic player the defense has.

That is of course horrendous, and about 80% of the blame should  be heaped upon Rich Rodriguez. Rodriguez struck out on tight ends and OL left and right during this period, compounding that issue with some horrible talent evaluation—of the guys who left early, only Ray Vinopal has made any kind of impact at a BCS school.

Baumgardner's article comes with a depressing Big Ten retention rate chart showing Michigan at the bottom at 26%; three teams are tied at 40% for next worst: Minnesota (coaching change), Penn State (holistic program implosion), and Indiana (coaching change, is Indiana). No one else has lost more than half their class; Northwestern leads the way at 82% with MSU second.

2011

Frank Clark 50 pounds ago, Chris Barnett, Tony Posada

This was the hybrid RR/Hoke class in which Hoke found himself with three weeks to pile ten guys in. Late Hoke pickups are denoted with H.

Enrolled (11): Justice Hayes(H), Brennen Beyer, Raymon Taylor(H), Blake Countess, Delonte Hollowell, Frank Clark(H), Desmond Morgan, Russell Bellomy(H), Keith Heitzman (H), Jack Miller, Matt Wile(H)

*[Bryant actually committed after Hoke was hired but had been favoring Michigan so long that Rodriguez deserves the credit there.]

Transferred for PT (2): Tamani Carter(H), Thomas Rawls(H).

Academics/Not Being Nice (2): Chris Barnett(H), Kellen Jones

Injury (2): Antonio Poole(H), Chris Bryant.

Left Football (3): Chris Rock (basically: is walk-on at OSU now), Greg Brown, Tony Posada.

Rawls and Bryant are added to the dead list here; the Bryant departure leaves the OL count from the 2010 and 2011 classes at a whopping one, Jack Miller. Rawls was a signing-day reach who represented Peak Fred Jackson as Michigan scrambled after the process; Bryant was a three/four star borderline OL who needed to take a lot of weight off, much like Posada. Posada showed up for a cup of coffee; Bryant couldn't remain healthy enough to stay on the field, though he did start a few games in the middle of last year.

While this class is better than its predecessor it represents the bulk of the seniors on the roster. That's a problem when you've only got 11 of them and one is an offensive lineman. An attrition rate of 45% that could still go up is middling at best, something Michigan could not afford after the 2010 crater.

2012

Redshirt sophomores and juniors.

Funchess, Henry, Kalis

Enrolled:Dennis Norfleet, Sione Houma, Amara Darboh, Jehu Chesson, Devin Funchess, AJ Williams, Kyle Kalis, Blake Bars, Erik Magnuson, Ben Braden, Ondre Pipkins, Willie Henry, Matt Godin, Mario Ojemudia, Tom Strobel, Chris Wormley, Joe Bolden, Royce Jenkins-Stone, James Ross, Terry Richardson, Jarrod Wilson, Allen Gant, Jeremy Clark.

Injury(1): Kaleb Ringer.

Michigan still has all but one guy from Hoke's first class on the roster. The departure, Kaleb Ringer, had microfracture surgery and transferred to a lower level to play.

At this point there have to be a couple guys teetering on the edge of a transfer because they can't get on the two-deep—that kind of attrition is the sign of a healthy program, not a diseased one. It's worth noting that was Michigan super, super paranoid about bringing in anyone who looked like an academic risk in this class. That seemed like a reaction to the previous two recruiting efforts; now it appears to be just their standard.

2013

Enrolled: 27 of 27.

Nobody from Hoke's second class has exited after one year.

2014

Enrolled: 7 of 16 with the rest pending. There haven't been any whispers of academic issues except with kids Michigan ends up not getting, so it's likely the class arrives intact.

Gardner's implied question is the same we're all asking [Fuller]

The 2014 football season hinges on whether the offensive line can go from one of the worst in the country to just mediocre. We've mentioned the downsides: it has to replace two NFL tackles. The upside is an offensive coordinator who plans to simplify the things they'll have to do, a ton of talent, and rather good excuses for why the bulk of guys weren't so good (youth compounded by panicky/insane coaching decisions). The competence of coaches replaced, arriving, or remaining can't be determined until they play, so guesses at their 2014 performance have to be extrapolated from what we know of the current players and the typical progression of men like them.

When Michigan was still putting together those 2012 and 2013 classes I looked over the history of our offensive linemen going back to the mid-'90s, because my memory before that is weak.

The results were the growth chart below. I've reproduced it with updated data from 2013:

Really it's more specific than the above. If you're the backup to Steve Hutchinson in 2000 you could be pretty solid or terrible, but if you were an interior lineman on the 2013 team and hale and still couldn't crack the depth chart, you were obviously not good at that point. One thing working in our favor is Michigan has historically brought in offensive line classes rated about as highly as the recent crops. If you tried this with MSU over the same period there would be stretches of 2-stars (and, um, personal issues) to throw off the numbers.

A more precise way to show where our OL are at this point is to find closer comparisons to historic players at this point in their careers. I couldn't figure out a good way to show "tracks" before, but I think I've learned enough about table html now to make a crude flow chart. Sample sizes are way too small to say "Kalis will be X good by Y season," but if you can read it to say "At that age, Steve Schilling and Patrick Omameh were both about where Kalis is now." Usefulness is better at capping expectations: you can always say so-and-so was a backup at this point, but Miller's not going to be Molk.

Here goes:

[Discussion after the jump]

Played as freshmen track: Bosch and Cole?

Until Bosch Michigan had only started one true freshman, that being Boren, who beat out a better (still not great) depth chart for his playing time. If Mason Cole starts this year he would be just the third. I would guess that the guy they picked to start as a freshman, even if he wasn't very good, is still ahead of his class. I definitely wouldn't expect an all-conference season from either, but there's a reasonable hope that Bosch at least could be a decent starter, which would mean nice things for the future.

Figure most years both of these guys would have redshirted. Upside is still Backus and Hutchinson, downside is still all the way down.

Liability as a redshirt freshman starter track: Kalis & Mags

Again, a guy starting as a redshirt freshman is rare, and a guy ready to play at a Big Ten level his redshirt freshman year is rarer still. A guy who's decent by his second year in the program tends to be awesome. A guy who's forced to play at this point and is a liability is still probably going to be good; even if you'd rather he not be starting, he's shown the coaches enough by this point to be ahead of the field of other guys you don't want starting.

How could they make Schilling a tackle? Couldn't they see his number was clearly in the 50s? [photo: Allen Warren|AnnArbor.com]

Our two examples are Steve Schilling and Patrick Omameh, who broke into the starter ranks late his redshirt freshman year with mixed results. Omameh regressed sharply once he could no longer do what he was great at (devastating second-level defenders), and was asked to pull or manhandle the guy in front of him, both things he could never do well.

You could perhaps compare Mags to Schofield, who was a decent interior lineman as a RS sophomore then moved outside to his natural tackle position and was quietly pretty good. Schofield didn't start as a redshirt freshman, but that year (2010) didn't have any obvious holes. Schofield as a sophomore guard was decent-but-protected (and played because Barnum got hurt). When he played his natural tackle spot he looked okay. Stenavich in 2001 was the natural comparison for those with a 10-year memory of eventually decent offensive linemen.

Kalis is your Schilling comparison. Schilling was also a 5-star, but he was asked to play right tackle—and didn't do very hot—for a couple of years before he moved inside, where he wound up being pretty good. What does Schilling look like as a starting guard in 2008? Probably on the high liability side.

Solid as a sophomore track: Glasgow

It's hard to call anyone on Michigan's interior line "solid" but the low end of that description fits the year Glasgow had. He was obviously the best of the group. The precedent for guys who are able to win the job and play at that level in their third year with the program is very encouraging. The upper end of expectations for Glasgow finds two similar center/guard types in Davids Brandt and Baas. Tony Pape and Adam Kraus grew into all-conference players as seniors. Adam Stenavich, Matt Lentz, and Mike Schofield are the low end of expectations. I'll take Lentz with a chance of Baas any day!

Chances are good that many of Michigan's OL candidates are on the Huyge Track, which means you'll spend this year praying to replace them, next year still mad at them, and 2016 forgetting you ever said those things. [photo: Heiko]

Liability as a sophomore track: Miller

Do we give up on Jack yet? History suggests yes, unless he's anexceptionally bright guard/tackle tweener like Chris Ziemann, who was loved by coaches but not as much by fans, or Mark Huyge, the more recent and unkillable example. Zach Adami isn't a good comparison; he was a guy who looked like a tackle but because Jansen and Runyan were the tackles he started a year each at the guard spots (one bad, one good) before emerging as the national championship team's All-Big Ten center as a senior.

Closer examples are Reuben Riley, Alex Mitchell, and Demeterius Solomon, who were good depth guys to have on the team but you didn't want them starting. Again, you're looking at lots of tweeners, which Miller isn't.

So let's look down the line where we do come across some centers who wound up okay as seniors in Steve Frazier, Mark Bihl and Kurt Anderson, and some guys who never cracked better depth charts (Ben Mast, Courtney Morgan). There's also plenty of Tim McAvoy-like objects. So don't give up on Miller but there's only a remote (Dave Pearson) chance that he's solid this year.

Backups and redshirt tracks: everybody else.

This is just a big "no idea" for these guys. Mentally put Braden and Bars behind the two guys who cracked the depth chart last year, and save all other judgment for the future.

Outlook:

If we're sticking to this "you might remember me from such players as" thing then here's basically how I'd see the offensive line going down:

When I plug these guys into the seasons of recent memory to find a comparison, the two obvious things stand out: 1) Rich Rod's offense >>>> Hoke's/Carr's and 2) Liability starters are a problem:

rushing yards per carry and passing yards per attempt are sack-adjusted

There were two seasons with no liability starters, and those produced really really good rushing numbers.

We're not that. At best the 2014 line will be something like the 2009 version, which was young, in its second year under a new coach, and flashed good things until it lost Molk and crumbled to below-average. That of course was under one of the game's greatest coordinators, but Omameh was the only guy Rodriguez had recruited himself. It also lost 412 yards in TFLs and gave up more sacks than 2008 despite the run-based offense and the second-year Rodriguez leap effect. That's partly on too-moxie-to-ever-throw-it-away freshman Forcier, but a line with pores is one that can be exploited despite good pieces elsewhere, something the 2013 offense is nodding vigorously about.

So that's the bad news. The good news is that once these guys are upperclassmen there's a very good chance of finding five solid or higher players, and the couple times that's happened Michigan's offense has been between good and really really good.

I think it's really happening. Mike Babcock-to-Michigan rumors have just been turned up to 11:

Mike Babcock says not worried about negotiating for extension, will either remain coach of Red Wings or be assistant at U of M/ Berenson

— Helene St. James (@HeleneStJames) April 29, 2014

That is quite a statement: "eh, if I don't continue to coach one of the most storied franchises in the NHL I'll just go be Red's assistant." If Michigan sticks to the plan that would be a one-year apprenticeship before the job came open.

Oh really. Paging Captain Renault: Mitch McGary's drug test won't impact his draft stock.

"No, not really, because you know what, probably 70 percent of the league does that (smokes marijuana)," the scout told MLive, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

But what about the spirit of sport, NBA? What about the spirit of sport?

"Appropriate." Matt Hayes walks up to the unionization issue on a tee and takes a Casey-like swing:

So if we’re going to do this; if we’re going to call athletes employees (or whatever you want to call them) and expand benefits and increase their ability to market and make money off themselves, the consequences for violating rules must be swift and appropriate.

Gone are the days where Troy Smith can take $500 from a booster, sit out a bowl game, get reinstated and two years later finish his career by winning the Heisman Trophy.

If you take $500 from a booster now, you lose eligibility. Permanently.

Hayes, prone on the ground, cartoon birds circling his head. The tee, untouched.

The average Troy Smith is still going to get the money, but will not be punished. Ramping up penalties for infractions that 99% of offenders will not get caught for is like throwing people in jail for speeding.

I mean, who cares? Who cares that Troy Smith now has 500 dollars? Level playing field, you say?

Indeed.

Meanwhile:

Gone are the days of second, third and fourth chances as it relates to— take your pick— arrests (and convictions), academic failure, failed drug tests (performance enhancing or recreational), or any behavior that harms a university’s reputation.

Let me just direct you to the quote above about Mitch McGary. Or, you know, society. The society in which those first time arrests and convictions generally result in probation or diversion so that people can have a second chance. If people were held to the standards Matt Hayes is advocating for newly professional-ish college athletes, unemployment would run around 50% and include Matt Hayes.

Let's goooooo. The News profiles now-critical Mark Donnal, collecting the various encouraging quotes about him that have been dropping in the past couple months:

“He’s definitely displayed a couple of specific skill sets,” Alexander said. “Mark is a tremendous passer, both in traffic and on the perimeter. His shooting range makes him a capable and reliable pick-and-pop jump shooter on the perimeter.

“He has a great face-up game in the post. The thing he discovered through added strength is the ability to rebound the ball in traffic.”

With sufficient three-point range to drag posts out to the perimeter, Michigan's post guys are liable to find shotblockers absent when they get by their guys. It'll be interesting to see what happens Walton and LeVert's shooting percentage at the rim when Donnal is out there providing Beilein his first shooting five since his arrival in Ann Arbor. I'm more concerned about his defense and rebounding—by the end there, Jordan Morgan was in beast mode.

Bacari is at least making the right noises about where he's headed:

“The thing that really excites me as his position coach is that nasty edge that he brings to the table, as well.”

He also has an interesting quote about how at Michigan "you are who you can guard," and the offense takes care of itself. Donnal will start at the five—out of necessity now—and has some ability to move out to the four as he "continues to improve his conditioning and lateral quickness." Given the composition of Michigan's roster the next couple years it doesn't seem like he'll be spending much, if any, time at the 4.

How much thing X irritates coaches, officially. Michigan's defensive grading system seems a little out of whack to me:

Like… forcing a fumble—hit the ballcarrier with enough force to make him drop the ball—is way harder than recovering one—get lucky, fall down. And what counts as a "missed tackle"? Missed tackles come in all shapes and sizes: you can let someone outside of you for a huge gain, which is super super bad, or you can not quite get a guy down but delay him enough that the cavalry rallies to stop him a yard after you would have. I'm guessing that latter probably counts as a tackle and the former gets a CRITICAL ERROR added to it.

Even so, it seems like "missed assignment" is the worst of all possible things. Missed assignments are touchdowns waiting to happen. When I do the UFRs some guy doing something that doesn't make any sense gets a serious downgrade and most of the coach types who have commented seem to agree with that assessment.

But being a coach is always a compromise between what you actually think in your head and what you think is the best way to get 85 guys doing a complicated thing well. See: the entire concept of "coachspeak." Or "Devin Gardner might start."

Just don't advertise it during games. Michigan Stadium is now open for prom:

Michigan Stadium is getting ready for prom season as part of a push to use the home of Wolverines football for more events during the offseason.

About 230 students from Durand High School, about 45 miles northwest of Ann Arbor, will take the field May 10 — the first time the Big House has hosted a prom, The Ann Arbor News reported (http://bit.ly/1mQvHXn ). And Dexter High School's prom is there May 17.

Hooray incremental revenue, as long as incremental revenue is not flogged at my ears during the games. See also: weddings, facebook, twitter, nonrevenue sports.

Everywhere, all the time. Ramzy on Ohio State's version of creating the future is worth your time:

Ohio State does not belong to you. You just happen to work there at this moment - you're stewards for a rich inheritance you're passing along to someone else that no one will ever cash. That's what Ohio State is. You did not build this brand. You can only damage or improve it.

And you should find as many ways as possible to give it away for free. Businesses do this all the time because it gives them a great return and it's terrific exposure for future buyers. Future buyers. This is where we talk about the children who don't have wealthy parents or opportunities to embark on a wallet-crushing fall Saturday in Ohio Stadium.

Also in this genre is a post from Get The Picture, a Georgia blog:

It’s not like money is a problem in Athens.  It’s just that there seems to be little thought to spending it in a way that makes the fan base content.  I think back to the shameful way North Campus was treated before Michael Adams had his hissy fit and essentially shut down the tailgate experience; much of that could have been resolved with better security, more restroom facilities and a reasonable amount of attention paid to trash removal.  None of that is exactly back-breaking from a financial standpoint for a school with Georgia’s resources.  It’s just that no one in a position to improve things could be bothered with it.  And that’s a story you could repeat in many other ways.

Instead, we’re offered enhanced wi-fi, ever more intrusive piped in music and goofy sideshows like yesterday’s mascot abomination as a solution.  But I don’t weigh the prospect of live attendance on the basis of my short-term attention span.  The home experience is about greater comfort and convenience.  I don’t wait to go to the kitchen for a drink, my bathroom smells nice and I can always find a place to park.  This is the lesson I’m afraid McGarity and his AD peers are missing.  I want what I got yesterday – a feeling that the money I’m shelling out is somehow being spent to benefit my experience in a way that gives me what I have at home, while making me feel glad I came.

I also recommend the comments, this one in particular:

UGA AA for so long thought that buying a ticket was the only way to gt a good view. Then 27 inch crt color television gave ay to 60′ HD home theaters and the Butts-Mehre suits haven’t yet figured out how to compete without creating something to sell.

Georgia fans are basically the Michigan fans of the SEC and they're experiencing the same things, albeit with less of a swoon with their football program. The comparison they're making here is to the Masters, which is a fantastic example of an organization successfully creating a culture of otherness that makes it in fact special. While that comes with costs—see women and minority membership—they're holding onto their fanbase because they make it feel good to be a fan. I can't say I remember the last thing Michigan did that was a step in that direction.

That reminds me of a thing I think I failed to relate when it happened: before the Nebraska game this year I was walking to my family's tailgate. As I neared the stadium the jumbotron was showing me the previous week's game… against Michigan State. Devin Gardner got annihilated and intercepted and I was like "feels bad, man."

It was the previous week's Not Michigan Replay, it turned out, and I just thought to myself "is there literally no one in the athletic department with the common sense to not show Michigan fans highlights of a game in which they rushed for –48 yards?" People are just in charge of things for no reason.

The ultimate Pandora's Box question. Oh, man. As scaremongering anti-union/reform questions go, this is the best/worst:

Could boosters treat recruiting like the Wild West?

oh no what would that look like

Etc.: Why the O'Bannon case is a duel to the death. At least everyonehates the way the McGary thing went down. More evidence that Michigan's upper reaches are inappropriately secretive. Jordan Morgan report card. Talking with Ricky Doyle. The Big Ten basketball powerhouse.

It could happen?

Red Berenson has two years left on his contract and says this will be his last one. Speculation about his replacement has been rife. Veritably so. Folks around the program have been chattering about Red Wings coach Mike Babcock taking over for a few years now, primarily Michael Spath at the Wolverine but also from guys at the Daily:

@MichiganHockey@YostBuilt@cdbarker FWIW, in 09 I heard from multi. ppl. closely tied to Red when I covered UM that MB would be successor.

— Mark J. Burns (@markjburns88) April 29, 2014

Despite the chatter, the idea a sought-after NHL coach would take the pay and prestige cut to pilot a college program has always been a "pull the other one, it has bells on" kind of thing. I have believed that people around the Michigan hockey program believe the thing about Babcock without really believing it myself.

That opinion is undergoing a bit of a shift.

Yesterday, a press conference sent the Michigan hockey blogosphere into a tizzy, and today fuller articles hit the News and MLive. While the comment about being Red's assistant is clarified as a joke by MLive. The fuller picture contained therein is one of a guy who seems to have a plan that involves having a job that's not necessarily with the Red Wings.

GM:

“I do want him back. I think we work good together.”

Coach, after mentally crossing out the word "good" and replacing it with "well":

Babcock, who turned 51 on Tuesday, said it was “no priority whatsoever” to get a new deal, adding “I doubt it” when asked if he’d talk extension.

That has to be unprecedented: a coach openly stating he doesn't care about a new contract. Charlie Weis is still getting paid, you guys.

Unfortunately, in context the quote about "definitely" staying in Detroit is just about next year, because he's got a daughter who's a senior in high school.

“My daughter’s going into her Grade 12 year. I’m either going to be the coach of the Red Wings or I’ll be Red’s assistant coach for a year,” Babcock said. “For sure I’m staying in Detroit. I haven’t thought about going anywhere else.”

So don't read too much into that.

Still, in marked contrast to a GM who says he'll discuss an extension with the club Babcock is talking about a year-to-year deal after this season. That is the kind of thing you do when you have something else in mind. It may be a temporary thing or he may be looking for a change of scenery to another NHL club. It is a concrete step towards Babcock at Yost, and as such gives the chatter out of Ann Arbor a credence it lacked yesterday.

I assume it goes without saying that locking down a guy who voluntarily left the Red Wings after a decade would be the coup to end all coups.

Previously: Last year's profiles, CB Brandon Watson.

Do I actually need to write this one? Surely you are full to the brim with Jabrill Peppers information. Eighteen years ago he sliced open his father's head with a sword and leapt forth, fully formed, ready to wreak havoc upon Persians and Carthaginians alike. After shoving the Indian subcontinent into an aesthetically pleasing location he wandered the world, dispensing sage advice to operators of wheeled vehicles of all descriptions everywhere. He decided to go to Michigan to win the Heisman as a defensive back and did so twice in the future forever and ever amen.

The end. Hooray.

If you are not sated yet, here's all this other stuff. Let's start with the various "room for improvement" sections found in scouting reports. Clint Brewster:

Improvements: It is very hard to find a flaw or a glaring area for improvement in Peppers game.

Brian Dohn:

What Needs Work

I’m sure when Roger Bannister broke the 4-minute mile, there must have been one bad step during it, so it leaves room for Peppers, the No. 4 prospect in the nation, with things to improve upon.

Does anyone have an actual criticism? Second chance time, Mr. Dohn.

The only thing with Peppers is sometimes he is so aggressive and wants to make a play so badly, he will bust an assignment in the passing game or guess which hole to fill in the running game rather than just wait for the play to develop and do his one-eleventh.

All right, then. These are the… uh… multiple and serious negatives of Jabrill Peppers. Offsetting these are some meager positives that may one day see him squeeze onto a Division I football field.

• Brewster, 247: "Peppers is a rare athlete with potential to be great at the next level. He is one of the most talented players I have ever seen at the high school level. At 6-foot-1, and 205-pounds, Peppers has college ready size to go with un-matched speed and explosiveness."
• Dohn, Scout: "Peppers has it all. The speed, acceleration, change of direction, ability to turn his hips and cover down or across the field, leadership, competitiveness, physicality, strength and a high football IQ."
• Adam Friedman, Rivals: "Peppers' incredible natural athleticism combined with his big frame and tireless work ethic has helped him become a true lockdown cornerback. "
• Scott Kennedy, Scout: "…could play four to five different positions and excel at them.  He is a strong running back.  He is as fluid as a good corner.  He hits like a linebacker.  He could play safety.  You could honestly take him and put him in an outside linebacker position and he would flourish.  He is going to return kicks.  He is going to return punts.  He catches anything that is near him.  He is spectacular."
• Tom Luginbill, ESPN: "…in the past nine classes we are not quite sure we have seen a skilled athlete on defense like Peppers. He is as naturally gifted and explosive of an athlete as we can recall and he could play five positions."
• ESPN evaluation: "Has sudden movements but can also accelerate at a premium level with great top-end speed. … Will arrive with or shortly after the ball before the receiver can react. Naturally gets his head around to locate the ball and competes for it like a WR when it's in the air. Shows really good tracking and ball skills and a natural awareness around the football in all three phases of the game. … Shines in tight coverage… Takes sharp angles, closes strong with great burst and will wrap and pop as a tackler. … game changer."
• Tim Sullivan, Rivals: "While he's not his listed 6-1 (more like a shade under 6-0), Peppers' weight won't be in question. He is already built like an NFL defensive back, and hits with the force you'd expect. Throughout the week in practice, he could barely prevent himself from laying a big hit in the run game or against a wide receiver while playing coverage … also every bit the explosive athlete we expected him to be. "
• USC coach: "Holy s---, that's him? I've only seen two players in high school with a body like that and both of them are named Peterson [Adrian and Patrick]."

"Is that all?" you scowl whilst raising a glass of cognac to your lips. "I had heard he was rather something." You're such an elitist.

Anyway, everyone who has seen Peppers has come away fanning themselves and trying to jam more stars into the guy's profile. There is no dissention here, except as to where he will play.

Two of the above evaluations mention he could play four or five positions (RB, WR, CB, S, and maybe OLB is how that breaks down), and several articles bat that possibility about. 247's JC Shurburtt asserts that he's a surer thing on offense because there's no denying his ability there ("electric and dynamic") and he may outgrow the corner spot if he's not enough of a freak athlete to outgrow the corner spot and still play corner. On the other hand, Rivals suggests he's more of a sure thing on D, and everyone ranks him there.

This was not at cornerback

So then where does he end up? We've already had a rather long comedy breakdown of something Peppers did on offense on this site. Meanwhile, poke an analyst in the right mood, as Sam Webb did, and you'll find yourself asking a follow-up question like so:

You mentioned he could play five positions at the next level.  At what position do you think he would have the greatest impact?

And the floodgates veritably open with comparisons to other players. Most are corners, but some don't make any sense so the ones that do make sense are split between CB, S, and offense: Take your pick from:

• Joe Haden, CB, Florida/Cleveland Browns. This was Rivals' rather bizarre shot at a comparison, one that starts out with "physically, Haden and Peppers aren't very similar." They do assert that Haden and Peppers are both "strong, physical cornerbacks" who will come up against the run. Haden was a HS QB, just about exclusively.
• Greg Reid, CB, FSU/St Louis Rams. Reid is apparently the nouveau Antione Winfield since he is 5'8" but Peppers's UA coach brought him up as a comparison point because he levels people: "He reminded me of Greg Reid. I’ve never seen a corner come down that fast underneath -- that aggressive. He is a corner that I think can hit like a linebacker. He wants to hit. He doesn’t want to stray from a hit. To be that muscular he has great fundamentals. I think he’s probably the most physical corner we have here.” This gentlemen then said he was going to be a safety/rover/hybrid guy after comparing him to a 5'8" corner.
• Patrick Peterson, CB, LSU/Arizona. The most sensible CB comparison comes from Peppers himself, who notes their almost identical size. 247's Clint Brewster also cites Peterson in his evaluations.
• Reggie Bush, RB, USC/Lions. Since no one ventured a specific player who made sense when talking about Peppers's vast offensive potential, this one's mine. When searching for an offensive comparison, Scout's Scott Kennedy started talking about De'Anthony Thomas, a 165-pound dude when he entered college. Bush is now listed at 203 on his NFL bio and has the same height as Peppers; Peppers can make a legit claim to his explosiveness. Peppers projects as a RB/WR space hybrid type guy more than a Green-style pounder.
• Eric Berry, S, Tennessee/Chiefs. Kennedy did bring up an interesting name whilst fighting himself about where to play Peppers: Berry, a box safety/hybrid space player/all-around-pain: "I think his impact on the game [would be maximized by] letting him roam around a little bit and freelance and let him play – an Eric Berry style of safety where they would walk him up. I mean, Eric Berry had 15 tackles for loss.  He is that kind of a player.  Eric Berry, I thought, was maybe the best player in college football a couple of years ago.”

Meanwhile, the guy you may have heard of mentioned above in You May Remember Me From Such Players as spans all of these things: a corner, return guy, and occasional wide receiver at Michigan, Charles Woodson spent time at corner, safety, and nickel in the NFL, excelling at all three. As the NFL game became more spread out, Woodson flipped inside to provide the triple threat skills the ideal HSP manages: blitz, cover, and support the run. A former Stanford player lays out Peppers' ability in that department:

Peppers shows on video to be a very tough player and a violent tackler. If he does, as most expect, end up on the defensive side of the ball, his reaction skills could place him in the role of a top-end cornerback. However, his willingness and ability to strike and his blitzing competence could make Peppers an excellent safety, given that he is already around six feet tall and 200 pounds, or a corner who could master the nickelback role when necessary. He closes well on run plays and does so with a purpose, making him an all-around football player well worthy of his gaudy offer list.

Erase the first word in that evaluation and it may as well read "Woodson."

Now… take a look at the Michigan roster and think back to what they were doing with the defense in spring: one high safety, cornerbacks in your grill, one definitively box safety plunging down to the line to disrupt things. Generally it is harder to make the big game-changing impact from a safety spot, but if you've got the skillset it is possible—Berry was the fifth pick in the draft—and Peppers seems to have it.

What about next year? Expect a bit of a slow start if Peppers does slot in at corner. Paramus used Peppers mostly as a safety, so the finer points of tight coverage are things he'll have to develop. His UA position coach:

“Maybe he needs to work on just the biggest fundamentals of a cornerback,” Cox said. “We all know he’s aggressive now so it’s now work on reading the routes a little quicker, reading the quarterback drops, understanding the pass drops a little better.

“He’s more run oriented. You can tell he wants to play run, run, run -- sit back a little more and work on your passing routes, work on the quarterback drops and your receiver breaks.”

 Peppers self-scout:

"I definitely want to improve on my hip flexibility," Peppers said. "I know that I've been ranked and seen as the top cornerback in the country, but people don't realize that it's actually a pretty new position for me. I don't have a lot of experience there. Given that, I know I need to continue to learn about the position and learn how to understand it. Once I really understand and grasp it and am able to combine it with my athletic ability, the sky will be the limit for me at the position."

Perhaps this would be arrogant, except literally everyone else who has described Peppers's potential has echoed it. So it's just normal.

Don't expect him to take too long, though. Unlike Brandon Watson he's had to do a variety of things in a variety of ways. As a bonus, various coaches say he picks things up quickly. His high school coach:

“He's playing safety for us and our defense is really a complicated type defense. We don’t sit in one thing. We combo cover. He’s used as a robber, he blitzes, he makes calls on the field himself, the check coverages. We tried to broaden his football horizon and say you know what, you’re one of the top-rated kids in the country, you’re going to learn the game big time and we’re going to put a lot on you.”

If Michigan does chuck him in at safety he could win the starting job opposite Wilson quickly. Probably not opener quickly; Big Ten play is a possibility.

I was in Camp Boundary Corner before doing this evaluation and now I'm torn between that and Safety Of Doom who moves down to play nickel/SAM against spread teams, sort of like Stevie Brown except riding an avalanche of dinosaurs. I won't regard any move as a bad sign, but rather an an attempt to get him on the field.

Etc.: Had a difficult upbringing. Surprise! He's a track star. I forgot to mention The Pattern, didn't I?

"I treat Jabrill like he's one of our coaches," Partridge says. "I'll tell him things that I would never tell other players. I treat him like one of the coaches because he can handle it, he gets it."

"Jabrill Peppers endless love tribute." Why he chose Michigan in his own words.

Why Charles Woodson? You're damn right I'm breaking out the big one. If not for Peppers, then for who?

And it is a super-tight comparison anyway. Peppers and Woodson are both burly boundary corner types with the physicality to get in the box and put a guy on the ground. Peppers was the top cornerback in the country; Woodson was also but just wasn't rated like it. Dynamic skills extend to offense, where return jobs and opportunities to moonlight as a slot receiver beckon. Same size, same skillset, same everything.

Guru Reliability: High. All say the same thing, was scouted top to bottom for years, all star game appearance.

Variance: Low. Already physically ready. Some question about experience at the cornerback spot but CB is a location about athleticism above all. Has 87 backup options if CB doesn't work out.

Ceiling: Can't hold us.

General Excitement Level: Yowza.

Projection: Michigan's jam-packed corner situation makes things a little questionable in year one. Is he displacing one of Taylor/Countess/Lewis? Well… maybe. None of those guys bring the size Peppers does to the table and that boundary corner spot is just begging for a guy who has the size and athleticism he does. But that'll happen gradually, as has been the case for all Michigan cornerback standouts past: about half a year working his way into the lineup before a mid-season promotion to the starting job.

Taylor departs after this year so the boundary spot should be his for the next two or three years, probably two.

The other option is for Peppers to be a heavily box-oriented safety and hybrid space player. It is not a terrible idea what with Michigan in possession of Lewis and Stribling for the next three years plus Countess for the next two; guys like Peppers can have the same level of impact elite corners do and the potential upgrade at SS looks like a bigger one than the potential upgrade at CB.

And what about the other side of the ball? He'll be given every opportunity to take kickoff and punts from day one; Norfleet is going to have to hold him off. Working him into the offense is probably something for 2015 and beyond. Once that milestone is hit, though, you'd have to be nuts not to at least explore the possibility.

Roseboro follow-up

NC DE Darian Roseboro took an extensive visit to Michigan last weekend and reported back favorably; Sam Webb has an article on the result, in which Roseboro's dad raves and says he's seen what there is to see:

“I’ve seen all I’m going to see,.” Mr. Roseboro said flatly.  “I’m not going anymore visits.  Maybe he and his mother and grandpa will go one or two more places… maybe Tennessee, maybe (North Carolina) State, (North) Carolina or Duke.  It won’t be any place further than what we’ve been.”

They want to come to a decision in the next couple months between Michigan and the schools listed above. NC State is popularly held to be the biggest threat… can we still be confident recruiting against NC State? I feel we can. .

Camps and such continue

Rivals's camp tour arrived in Detroit recently, and while there aren't a whole lot of local 2015 kids that Michigan seems to be pursuing there is one they're definitely after. He is Cass Tech RB Mikey Weber:

"Nussmeier, the day he came in, he contacted me and he brought me to their facility and he showed me a lot of things and he really opened my eyes back to Michigan," Weber said. "Nussmeier brings that Alabama style of running and that's what I'm looking for."

Weber was named the #1 player on offense in attendance:

Weber was virtually unguardable during the one-on-one period. The Rivals250 member is extremely agile and can change directions on a dime. Weber ran extremely crisp routes and had very good hands.

MSU seems the main competition unless Notre Dame puts on a press, but we are now in a situation where we can hope a highly touted running back commits to MSU before Michigan's target decides. In this case that's OH RB Larry Scott, who is reportedly about to drop to MSU.

/waves tiny 'punt' flag

Notre Dame, for its part, just got back in after a "misunderstanding" had Weber thinking an offer was coming when it was not. The two parties still seem to be at arm's length at the moment.

Weber's planning a hats-on-the-table decision at the Army game, FWIW.

Malzone just has to fire the photon torpedoes down the tubes to get an offer

MI QB Alex Malzonewas the QB MVP, FWIW, and may be inching closer to a Michigan offer:

The most noticeable thing about him was his rifle arm. The ball really pops off his hand and gets to his target in a hurry. Malzone's good footwork helped him throw a very accurate ball. He was able to hit most of his receivers in stride throughout the day.

His throwing session($) for various college coaches went well:

“My conversation with Coach Nuss went very well,” Malzone said. “He’s been all around the country seeing guys throw. I think he has one more, maybe two more on his list. He told everyone from the beginning he was going to see everyone throw. And then see what happens from there. And that’s pretty much what he told me. He said he was very impressed."

If I had to bet, Malzone's recent performances and flagging interest from the crew of elite California dudes will lead to Michigan issuing that offer. Wake Forest has issued his first BCS offer.

Elsewhere, PA OL commit Jon Runyan Jr showed up for a camp in the NY/NJ area, providing an opportunity for someone to provide scouting on him:

Runyan, a Michigan commit, was technically sound. His initial punch had purpose and he moved his feet well. He stayed low in his pass protection stance, and he did not reach. His balance was good, but he had a little difficulty when a speedy defensive lineman tried to go straight up the field on him. He was solid, and will continue to improve as his strength and size increase.

Listed at 6'3.5" and 265 pounds, Runyan is slated for the interior unless he hits a growth spurt.

Welp, part one

If you need a definition of how the recruiting landscape has shifted over the course of the last football season, here it is($):

Coming off a spring game visit to Michigan State on Saturday, Detroit King linebackerTyriq Thompson has the Spartans out front as the team to beat in his recruitment. … Thompson's father played for Michigan and he holds an offer from the Wolverines.

Previously MSU was only in play for certain recruits with family backgrounds that favored MSU or had academic red flags that Michigan, for better or worse, is shying away from. Now they're leading for a Michigan legacy with a Michigan offer. This is what happens when you have the most unwatchable football season in the country while your instate rival wins the conference and Rose Bowl.

Quick, play some more LFO, Special K!

Welp, part two

CA DE Keisean Lucier-South called Michigan a childhood favorite and was super-enthused about the offer that did come from Ann Arbor, but at the moment he's got another school out front($):

"UCLA is probably I would say the team to beat right now. I have been talking to them the most right now and I've seen them and been to their school the most so they're the team to beat."

He does have an official planned to Michigan this fall (also ND) and is going to take his time.

2016 stuff

OLSM LB Daelin Hayes was set to commit to Michigan at that Rivals camp before putting off his decision. His performance at the camp justified the early offer:

Hayes is looking like he will be among the nation's best in that class after what we saw on Sunday. It was always known that Hayes was talented, and that at 6-foot-3 and 225 pounds he had ideal size. However, he missed his sophomore year after getting injured in the first game of the season and there was some questions as to justhow good he was. We got that question answered pretty sufficiently on Sunday when Hayes proved to be on another tier athletically.

As far as his recruitment goes, his current offers are from M, MSU, Wisconsin, and Tennessee and isn't maintaining any leaders. He plans to camp($) at M, MSU, and Wisconsin so it doesn't seem like he's looking to go too far afield.

MI OL Thiyo Lukasa seems to be an instate battle, one that probably favors Michigan this instant but see Welp Part One above.

Basketball is going better, stop me if you've heard that before

Chatman and Wilson zoom up available rankings

It's another final rankings update, so Michigan recruits must be shooting towards the ceiling. This time it's Scout, which finally makes Kam Chatman a five star (at #23) after Chatman was the #1 four star on Rivals and 247. Also rocketing up the rankings is DJ Wilson, who finishes #67 after being an anonymous three star upon his commitment.  "Gold in them thar hills" tag: deployed.

Unfortunately, it seems like Michigan and Cole Huff aren't going to end up making sweet three point babies… this sentence got really weird really fast. I was powerless to stop it, you have to believe me.

Anyway. According to his AAU coach, Huff is down to two:

Cole Huff is down to Creighton and Iowa where he is visiting tomorrow he will be making a decision following the visit #Eleate

— clint parks (@Brotherhood05) May 1, 2014

Given the way they'd been talking about Michigan before I have to assume that Michigan did not end up pursuing Huff. That isn't the craziest thing in the world if Chatman and Wilson are both stretch fours… I just thought a guy who had that size and shot like that would be a lock to perform under Beilein. C'est la vie.

With Huff off the board, the next major event in basketball recruiting is likely to be the June window in which Michigan conducts its elite camp and fires out offers to 2016 prospects. Michigan is going to have a couple of big, big time guys on campus for that camp. One of them is going to be NV PG Derryck Thornton Jr. If that seems like an odd place for a guy super interested in Michigan to be, Chris Balas has a long piece($) on the reason Michigan is high on his list. Turns out Jeff Meyer coached his father back in the day when he was at Liberty, and things went better than they do with Rutgers coaches:

"One word - integrity," Thornton Sr. told us last year. "I remember him as a man as much as a coach. He had high integrity. Of course he'd get after you in practice, but that's what you do as a coach. There were times he'd call you just to check on you and see how you were doing."

Tom Crean just fainted, then cut down some nets.

Thornton plans to be at Michigan's elite camp for nearly a week, and an offer will certainly follow. Thornton is the #19 player in the country on the 247 composite, and their Crystal Ball has swung from 100% Arizona to 50-50 over the past few weeks.

As a bonus, Thornton and his dad have seemingly convinced NJ SF Tyus Battle to take in the elite camp as well. Syracuse is supposed to lead for Battle; get 'em on campus and all that.

And Michigan has plenty of options after those two… it seems that the 2016 cycle is the one where Michigan is really starting to see the payoff from their recent success. AL SG Josh Langford (not that Josh Langfeld), claims "high interest($)" in Michigan…

“Oh I definitely want to get up to Michigan,” Langford’s father said. “And Michigan State has also shown a lot of interest too so, I definitely want to get up to Michigan to check them out.”

…MI PG Cassius Winston is waiting on his offer, KY PG Quentin Goodin is tentatively planning to go head-to-head with Thornton at the elite camp, and ON PG Jamal Murray has M and MSU near the top of his list with only one visit under his belt—that to Michigan. Chances are Michigan locks down a top-50 PG in 2016.

Etc.: 2016 PA RB Miles Sanders is a Michigan offeree who's just getting into the recruiting process($). Penn State just offered. 2015 UT LB Osa Masina releases a top eight with Michigan in it. More importantly: is his twitter handle a shoutout to Greg Ostertag?

NC TE Chris Clarkstill has Michigan on top($) over OSU and MSU. Michigan leads for MO WR Jeff Thomas, who is part of the class of… 2017. Must be good. He's got M/OSU/MSU offers already.

Yes, yes, it's actually like round 15 or something, but round two with Beilein at Michigan.

Your random ACC opponent for this year's challenge: Syracuse and their 2-3 zone and long people everywhere. Michigan gets 'em at home. 'Cuse was undefeated for a big chunk of this year until their good fortune ran out and they started dropping close games against teams both good and bad; they were busted out of the tournament in the second round by Dayton, finishing 28-6.

While Michigan has been more battered by graduation and attrition, Syracuse also took some major hits. Leading scorer CJ Fair graduates; phenom point guard Tyler Ennis and SF Jerami Grant both entered the NBA draft.

Those guys represent a lot of Syracuse's offense; guys left over include three-point specialist Trevor Cooney and post Rakeem Christmas, plus DaJuan Coleman if Coleman can ever get healthy. Syracuse fans seem to think they're in for a "serious rebuilding year," FWIW.

The Orange do bring in a couple of touted recruits. Composite five star PF Chris McCullough is already 19 and should be ready to bang anyone Michigan can muster on the interior, and PG Kaleb Joseph will try to fill the gap left by Ennis. Even so, this is a much more manageable task than travelling to Cameron last year.

Previously on we-ripped-this-off-from-BHGP: ID16, ID16 part II, Urban's meeting.

As you may have heard, the Big Ten opened its new office in New York City recently, and the media got its first look on Wednesday.

What you may not have heard was that shortly before the media took their tour, the Big Ten coaches and a handful of administrators got a look inside. We have a transcript of their meeting.

 Delany: Okay, thanks everyone for coming. Before we begin…

 Hoke: Years?

Delany: Aw hell, not this again. Anyway, what I was…

 Hoke: YEARS???

Meyer: He’s not going to stop until you do it, Jim.

Delany. Sigh. Okay, fine. 135.

 Hoke: CHAMPIONSHIPS?

Dantonio: Yep!

 Meyer: Congratulations, blind squirrel.

 Hoke: BEAT?

Tim Beckman: Off!

Beckman: …hehehe…

Beckman: Get it? Cause he wanted us to say “Beat Ohio,” but instead I made a funny. Which is what we call jokes in Illinois.

Bo Pelini: Dude, Darrell, how the hell did you lose to that buffoon?

Darrell Hazell: Did you see what Danny Hope left me? The cupboard was bare, except for those jars of urine. And Rob Henry. I probably should have played the urine more.

 Delany: ANYWAY, thanks for all taking the time to come to the opening of our new offices. We’re hoping that given our new territory, we can expand our brand…

Dave Brandon: WOOT!!!

 Hoke: Sorry, he does that. It isn’t voluntary.

Brandon: What are we hashtagging this meeting? #B1GLifeB1GOffices? Damn I’m good.

Delany: Let’s just get the tour started.

[AFTER THE JUMP: the tour]

James Franklin: Hey guys!

Franklin: Sorry I’m late. I didn’t get the invite for some reason. Beckman had to give me the deets.

 Hoke: …

Kirk Ferentz:…

Jerry Kill: Hey James… how’s the…

Pelini: Dude. Leeeeeeeeeeeeeeave.

 Pelini: My lawyer said I can’t hang out with you right now.

 Pelini: Not for legal reasons. He just says you’re, quote, “sketchy as shit.”

Franklin: Eh, I get it. Besides, this is more respect than I ever got at the SEC meetings.

/Franklin leaves

Ferentz: GODDAMMIT BECKMAN

Beckman: Sorry, I forgot who we weren’t inviting. I thought it was the fat dude from Wisconsin.

 Ferentz: He coaches at Arkansas now, moron.

 Beckman: So, we WERE inviting him, or…

Fitzgerald: Yeah, THIS guy owns the State of Illinois.

/Delany leads the group to a large room lined with memorabilia.

 Delany: Herewe have the Great Hall of B1G. It tells the story of the Big Ten’s contribution to the game of football, from Rutgers victory in the first college football game in 1869 to Joe Tiller’s invention of the forward pass in 1998 to Al Borges’ invention of the backward run in 2013.

Kill: Forward pass?

Wilson: It’s where someone throws the ball through the air toward someone on your team.

Kyle Flood: Yeah, we had a guy that used to do that. He got fired for it.

Julie Hermann: No, he was fired because those kids were wimpy-ass pansies. Just like you, Flood. Also your children are dumb. And I kinda hope bad things happen to your pets.

 Flood: [/mumbling] think of the paycheck… think of the paycheck…

Nussmeier: You know I get paid as much as you, right?

Delany: And here we are in the food court. Nothing terribly interesting here, though we have some really exciting ideas involving unlimited snacks.

 Meyer: What, no Culvers? MAN, what I wouldn’t give for a Butter Burger. Am I right, Kirk?

Ferentz:

Beckman: Get it?

Beckman: It’s funny because your coach left to open a Culver’s. Urban didn’t really want a Butter Burger at all.

Meyer: Jesus, this guy is worsethanhaving Maryland around.

Randy Edsall: C’mon, man, I’m right here.

Meyer: Sorry, I didn’trecognize you without the renaissance fair getup.

Delany: And here’s the new legal department and crisis management wing. We’ve had to beef things up recently because SOME people can’t keep their shit in order.

 Fitzgerald: Look, I’m doing everything I can. I even said that thing you told me to tell them about what unionization does to genital size. I don’t know what else I could have done.

/the group enters what appears to be a laboratory of some kind

Delany: This is our new Academy of  the Punting Sciences .

Ferentz: Hot damn, now we’re talking.

Zook: Hello again, friends.

Dantonio: Ron? The hell are you doing here?

Zook: I have been here since before this place existed. In a way, I have always been here.

Zook: Also I’ve been looking for the exit for several days. I’m getting really hungry.

Delany: Even with Zook wandering aimlessly, we’ve already made significant advancements in Punt Theory. We’ve successfully located a scenario in which punting from the opponent’s 27 yard line could be sustainable.

Delany: Of course, that’s only in a laboratory setting. But still, promising.

Wilson: Hey, Jim, I have a question.

 Delany: Dammit Kevin, for the last time, yes, that’s as fast as our refs can run, and no, we can’t get them Segways. They’ll spot the ball when they spot the ball.

Hoke: PREACH, BROTHA

Wilson: That wasn’t what I was gonna ask, but… we’ll come back to that one.

Wilson: No, I mean, you make a big deal about the Big Ten being contiguous and all, and then you open an office where we don’t have any teams. Sup with that?

Delany: So glad you asked. BEHOLD!

Delany: We’re ready to announce Phase Three of Big Ten expansion. MANIFEST DESTINY!!!

Brandon: #Sea2ShiningSea #ThisLandIsB1GLand

Delany: We’re going to divide into two divisions:

 Delany: Purdue, Wisconsin, Illinois, Northwestern, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, Boise State, and Washington State will be in the Northwest Passage Division.

Delany: Michigan, Michigan State, Indiana, Ohio State, Penn State, Maryland, Rutgers, Syracuse, Boston College, Vermont, and Maine will be in the States That Fought For The Union Division.

Dantonio: Maine? Do they even play football?

Delany: No idea, but they both play hockey, and I've been told by my brethren from other hockey conferences that having Penn State be your 6th best team means we suck.

Kill: Wait, Jim… you said “Vermont,” but you have New Hampshire filled in on the map. So, is it New Hampshire, or is Maine just not going to be contiguous?

 Delany:…

 Delany: I have to make a call.

WELL FINE THEN. Apparently Michigan earned the animosity of Jimi Hendrix.

This was the Rose Bowl immediately following the legendary '69 OSU game that put Bo on the map, FWIW. Hendrix seems uncertain of the team that beat Michigan, he just wants Michigan to lose. Join the club. The very happy club.

I admit it. I find Wisconsin basketball tolerable these days. I still kinda hate Bo Ryan for being an alien from another planet sent here to prep us for invasion, but once they reached the Final Four I wanted Wisconsin to win the national title last year. And now Frank Kaminsky explains why he passed on the NBA draft:

"I am at the pinnacle of my basketball playing career, at least in my eyes. I know the NBA has their crazy fans and all, but if you look at all of their games, there are games when teams like the Bobcats get hardly any fans, and it looks flat out boring,” he wrote.

“At the Kohl Center, we play in front of nearly 17,000 fans every single time we step onto the court. When we travel, we play in front of sell out crowds who absolutely hate us. Not because of who is on the team, but because of where we go to school. Who could leave that?”

Frank Kaminsky Gets It™. Frank Kaminsky for athletic director. Where? Anywhere. Texas. Definitely Texas.

Oh, Texas twit, we are going to have an unrequited hate. Via Get The Picture, Texas Guy Just In Charge Of Things For No Reason on the A&M series:

UT AD Steve Patterson told us ``unless there is a compelling reason,'' the football series between Texas and Texas A&M is dead.

— Paul Finebaum (@finebaum) April 25, 2014

I wonder what would qualify as a compelling reason other than 111(!) games dating back to 1902.

But go ahead and play a game in Shanghai. That'll get your brand synergized.

Dude you're never going to get a girl like that. Move on to the next one. This is stalker behavior:

After extending the Season Ticket Holder renewal deadline, and a total of (15) emails delivered starting on March 14 as well as a voicemail left by Jim Brandstatter, the Michigan Athletic Department wanted to provide you one final opportunity to renew your 2014 Michigan Football season tickets to ensure you are once again a part of one of the most exclusive groups in all of sports.

One of the most exclusive groups in all of sports that begs you 15 times plus leaves a voicemail by Jim Brandstatter in the desperate hope you will renew your tickets. Oh and lets you have ONE LAST CHANCE to renew. All right. One more chance.

…

Seriously, this is your last chance.

…

Despite it being 2016, it's not too late to renew your 2014 season tickets!

At least I'm not alone? When Phil Di Guiseppe and Alex Guptill signed NHL contracts, I wrote rather bitter posts about their exits that garnered a number of sarcastic "tell us how you really feel" responses. Tell us how you really feel, Red Berenson:

"We were going good in the first half and then some issues started cropping up and we thought we had dealt with them, but there was an underlying current of animosity, and a division between certain factions. You'd like to think the leadership is strong enough - and we had good captains - that you can just bring guys together, but you have to have total buy-in and no matter how much guys like Mac Bennett, Derek DeBlois and Andrew Copp tried, they just couldn't get that."

I'm expecting hockey to have a refreshing season next year.

Hello, defenseman of the future. Hockey adds a commitment from Joe Cecconi, a kid currently in the USHL after a mid-season callup last year from a U16 junior outfit. Cecconi had nearly a PPG with his junior team before moving to the big (USA junior) leagues. Already 6'2" and nearly 200 pounds, the OHL fired an eighth-round pick at him despite considerable uncertainty about whether he would report. He doesn't appear to be on NHL draft radar.

As a mid-year '97, Cecconi is likely to come in next year unless Michigan has one of those "if X happens, this year, if Y happens, next year" deals. This is about all I could Google up on him.

Hockey rule changes. It sounds like college hockey is serious about going to three-quarter shields next year, which has been framed as a safety issue in the past and now apparently has USHL data to back it up. I continue to think it's at least partially driven by a desire to look more like the NHL and therefore help the never-ending blood war with the CHL, but if they've got data they've got data.

Other potential changes:

• Death to ties. The NCAA wants to explore way to get more W/L decisions, seemingly without resorting to shootouts. There's no solid proposition on the table; 4-on-4 and longer OTs are possibilities, as are—ugh—shootouts.
• More reviews. There's a proposal to expand the ways reviews can be used to check if goals are legit and if penalties warrant five-and-a-game. Hockey reviews are generally less odious than basketball ones since they're infrequent and about things that have a huge impact on the game, but it seems like they've got all the critical stuff right now and expanding it is reaching the point of diminishing returns.
• All neutral zone faceoffs at center ice. Faceoffs at the offside dots are kind of stupid for the attacking team if they win them. This is more a product of the fact that hockey offsides is clumsily implemented.
• Penalties for delay when you can't change. In favor.
• Fewer hand-pass whistles. Apparently there were too many inadvertent deflections called hand-passes last year.
• No leaving your feet to block a shot. Linked article says that's unlikely to pass, FWIW, but that's an effort to create more offense "in a time where goals are already at a premium." I'm pro-offense but that seems like it takes a hustle play out of the game for debatable returns.

There are a couple other extremely minor proposals.

MSU game plan

As always when hockey rule changes come up, I rant against how restrictive offsides is and proclaim it's time to admit goalies have won and expand the nets. There are a hundred ways to make offsides better; my current proposal is to triple the width of the line (the line is both part of the neutral zone and the offensive zone) and create a passive offsides rule like there is in soccer. A guy can be offsides without a whistle as long as 1) he is not impacting the play and 2) he immediately moves to exit and re-enter the zone.

As far as goal size goes, with modern butterfly goalies the only way to change the paradigm is to make sitting back and waiting for a shot to come in a worse play than it is right now. Teams like MSU play a six-goalie style in the defensive zone these days, because it makes sense. Dropping save percentages three or four points would swing things back towards aggression. Expand the nets by the width of the goalposts to get 2-3 more goals per game. It sounds dramatic, but really it's the least dramatic option to get scoring up. Everything else proposed is either a weak measure that won't do anything or a radical overhaul. Expanding the nets is just hockey with slightly different equations.

Etc.: Talking with DJ Wilson. Women's tennis has lost in the BTT final for the fifth straight year. Ouch. Instead of tweeting out your outrage about people saying "furst amundmunt," just tweet this XKCD. Jordan Morgan's suddenly the belle of the ball.

dramatization

I've got this dresser I'm painting to go with our bedroom furniture. A few weekends ago I got one coat on it. Then it rained and ruined half the second coat. So I took it out there again but it started to rain on and off and I had to hide it under the garage overhang. Every day I check to see if there will be six good hours of sunlight somewhere to stick the last coat on it, and every time there's a dollop of drizzle here, a sprinkle there, and at least one good pour per day.

It is as hopeless and infuriating as being a Michigan fan. I know we can't complain too hard because there are places like West Lafayette where it just rains all the time, or Champaign where the weatherman predicts sun so you'll be outside when the softball-sized hail comes.

Your April shower was Urban Meyer coming to piss on your attempt to add a grad-year transfer to the OL, and now May flowers with a boatload of puritan crap.

I'm still livid. For a second there it looked like at least one of Michigan's major sports was going to be sustainably great, so of course that's when the most insane decision yet by an organization best known for blithering stupid decisions knocks basketball from a likely 1-seed to something way less than that. McGary's mad too, but the NBA's not a terrible fallback plan. Michigan got screwed the most.

The last guy I could find to get the one-year ban was a role player at UNLV who lost his 5th year to it in 2010. We've been scouring Google to turn up polls and quotes to give you some idea of how ubiquitous pot-smoking is among college athletes. The NCAA's own study came back at 1 in 5:

I'm suddenly liking lacrosse more

So how is it, even if the draconian rule only applies to the playoffs, that the merciless league can only manage to tag one guy every four years? There's a synthetic version that regular pot-smoking athletes will use during the season to beat the tests. So when they do catch a guy with good ol'fashioned THC in his system, it's usually only because he's a total amateur. No pun intended.

Whence the leapers?

I know Jones is 10, but I keep getting Dukes (83) and York (81) confused.

The 2012 receiver class had a pair of high 4-star types with similar I-saved-my-family-from-a-terrible-place-in-Africa stories. The 2014 class had the guy who rewrote the in-state record books and what already looks like a gem in Freddy Canteen. Lost in the narrative have been the three large-and-leapy 2013 guys who redshirted last year. What do we expect from C'sonte, Jaron and Da'Mario? That's a good question.

This year I expect depth. In addition to Gallon we also graduated Dileo and Jackson and Reynolds. If Nussmeier indeed goes 3-wide a lot more as we hope, then at least one of them ought to figure on the two-deep in 2014.

Jones is more "slot-like", i.e. thin, though he's not at all short. I think his upside is Roy Roundtree, and so long as they leave him in the slot that'll be just fine. Dukes and York represent a specific type of receiver who can simply muscle past the type of legal-unless-they-call-it press coverage en vogue these days, and simply out-leap the 5'8 buggers who won't have any trouble staying with them. They're development projects: it takes years to perfect off-the-snap and route techniques to make this work. Unfortunately, Michigan only bothered to get a redshirt on Dukes last year, which, given Mathlete's finding that receiver experience is a big deal, is infuriating. Mo Ways is in this vein too, FWIW.

Etc. Hoops previews of Illinois, Maryland, and…Iowa? Hmm. Prediction for the remainder: Michigan (we should be below Iowa), Ohio State, Michigan State, Wisconsin.  Photos from the Go Blue Bowl. The 2013-'14 cagers'contributions to the season's gifs. Lacrosse potentially could go green…I mean more green.

[After the jump: why 2014 offense isn't 2011 defense, I enter the ranks of MGoBloggers who rant about Brandon]

Best of Board

CAN THE OFFENSE 2011 ITSELF?

Remember how the defense was such a mess by 2010 and could only hope to become average by 2011, then Mattison came in and they would up in the teens in scoring D while actually, you know, stopping people when it mattered? Why can't new OC Doug Nussmeier do the same with the offense? It could happen, but there are some factors in our way here:

1. Mattison walked in already one of the most accomplished DCs in football from stints at Michigan, Notre Dame, Florida and the Ravens. Nussmeier doesn't have that kind of standing, and the degree to which he was carried by Saban's monstrosity of a program is unknown.

2. Graduations will hurt more. Here's a chart of 2010 to 2011 defensive attrition and replacements versus this year's offense:

On the left: better, better, better, better, better. That Heininger turned out to be a pretty useful defensive piece was attributed to Hoke/Mattison magic; that he was an improvement over Greg Banks wasn't that great of an accomplishment. Similarly what they got out of Morgan and Ryan and T.Gordon and Countess was a mark of great coaching, but they were replacing only one NFL player (Mouton) and he a maddeningly inconsistent one drafted on potential, not college performance.

If you grant that Funchess and Gardner = RVB and Martin, who's the Kovacs of this offense? Who's the Roh? Is there a Demens? A Woolfolk?

On the right there's reasonable hope that a guard will outperform Mags's freshman campaign, that one or two young receivers will have more production than the critically underutilized Dileo, and that an RB's ability will actually be relevant, but even the ceiling of expectations doesn't have anyone performing at the level Lewan, Schofield and Gallon did.

3. The offense is still really young and has very few useful pieces. Pieces that remained to the 2011 defense included Mike Martin, RVB, and Craig Roh up front, Kenny Demens, and Jordan Kovacs. You can also count no-longer-a-freshman Courtney Avery and Woolfolk coming off injury. That's enough upperclassmen with experience to have some strength if glaring weaknesses can be fixed in the other spots. Ryan, Morgan, and T.Gordon were minor miracles, while Heininger and J.T. Floyd were biblical ones. The 2014 offense returns Gardner, Funchess, and after the first few games Butt and Glasgow. That leaves a good seven to nine J.T. Floyd-level acts of divine providence to match the 2011 defense's leap.

4. They STILL haven't played together. Mags's injury and Glasgow's joy-ride couldn't come a t a worse time. They'll enter fall with half the options at open positions still unable to contribute (e.g. LTT, Fox and Mags at OT), which almost guarantees lineup shuffling deep into next season. The only personnel changes to happen from Spring 2011 to the Sugar Bowl were Morgan seized the open WLB job five games in, and various guys (first T.Gordon, then Countess) displaced a beat-up Woolfolk.

5. The position coaches haven't changed. The difference between Tony Gibson and Curt Mallory was immediately evident to everyone from the fans to opponents to the players themselves. Obi and Mouton seemed to regress every year under GERG's tutelage, while under Mattison Demens became a very good player, the WLBs played to their limited abilities, and Jake Ryan started going smash. And once you compare what Hoke got from walk-ons on the DL rotation versus the play of 5th year seniors Patterson/Banks/Sagesse in 2010, well the differences in position coaching were staggering. If the same guys couldn't teach A.J. Williams to block, and an offensive lineman is yet to pull effectively twice in a row under Funk, why would they start now?

6. Borges > GERG. This statement will get me into trouble, but there were times (Notre Dame, Ohio State) where Al Borges just had himself a GAME. Can you remember one time in 2009 or 2010 when you thought "wow, Greg Robinson really out-thought their offensive coordinator today"? Borges was prone to GERG-level performances and he was ABSOLUTELY the wrong choice for a team with two years of eligibility remaining to Denard Robinson et al., but he did have good days.

7. It wasn't as much of a jump as you remember. Well, it was a leap from purely awful to okay, but as we've been over before and seen since, the 2011 defense wasn't really elite. Rather it was a significant improvement that helped itself with timely fumble recoveries (these are random) and an astounding stoppage rate on short situations.

THE ONE THING THEY HAVEN'T SOLD OUT

As predicted, a combination of a mostly unwatchable 7-win season, the worst home schedule since Horace Prettyman, and the most predatory ticket policies in the history of amateur athletics, has finally done it: Michigan is having trouble filling the house that Yost built.

The board tried to do an informal poll but got few responses. If somebody with an unlimited monkey-thing account (you know what I mean) would like to put that together I'll put it up next week. Most of the responses echoed this sentiment from user umumum:

All for the tradition

but right now that is about all there is.  I renewed again for the umpteeth plus year.  But the "product" gets worse every year (of late) and I'm not talking about only wins and losses.

I get why some are letting their season tickets go.  It doesn't necessarily mean they are less of a Michigan alum or "Man".  Otherwise, we should just get out rulers and start measuring.

The athletic department's response: for a limited time only, you can pay a higher preferred seat donation to move up into a higher pool of unguaranteed seats. Give 'em credit: they know how to milk a dime, even if the cow's already been slaughtered and sold to the butcher. If you're doing this, it is advised that you tell the athletic department exactly where you'd like to sit as a condition of the extra donation.

The historic low in ticket demand warranted a Brandon-explains session at a public business luncheon, wherein DB unveiled the latest in wow-that-was-callous experiences:

“We all think ofevery home Michigan football game like a miniature Super Bowl. We’ve got to have enough going on that people want to be there to listen to it. We know who our competitor is: your 60-inch, high-definition, soon-to-be-3-D television set that you will choose instead of my $65 ticket. And we work really hard at that.”

Does Brandon really believe those of us who didn't renew our tickets did so because the stadium experience isn't NFL enough, or that we've all got 60-inch, 3-dimensional HDTVs and three devices in arm's length with which to pull up replays from BTN (and the 30-second commercials affixed to them of course)? No. Of course not.

It has almost assuredly crossed his mind he may have priced out lifelong fans with $110 (with PSD) tickets, even if he can't see what's wrong with turning Michigan football into 4 hours of dog groomer RAWK, commercial breaks, and a great big reminder of that time Chad Henne and Mike Hart lost to a I-AA team. Just as cable networks and providers know damn well that families paying off two cars, a mortgage, and student loans can't afford 190 channels they won't watch just to get BTN.

The fact is the poor man's dollar is worth half of the extra $2 that the moderately well-off man will grudgingly allow you to fleece so as to not interrupt his lifestyle. Michigan's mercenary decision to pursue that dollar sends a clear transmission: if you can't afford to watch his athletes do things athletically improbable, go do a thing that's anatomically impossible.

I know, I know, I'm the nth-teenth writer on this site to jump in on the Dave Brandon bitch-fest. Since I rarely use the press passes and my family rage-quit our tickets a few years ago, drowning out the band and insidious advertising are secondary concerns to just being able to afford my Michigan habit on an MGoSalary. In my interactions with this athletic department over the last few years, I've had twice the "Damn you!" experiences as positive ones. I can only imagine what that number looks like for people who don't go to softball games.

SOFTBALL GAMES

It's the last weekend of Big Ten play. Do you know where your Wolverines are?

Etc. OFFER TINY BREES ALREADY! Apparently not everyone goes for the "we have wings" recruiting pitch.

Your Moment of Zen:

I AM an angry goalie

Name: Shane Lemieux
Position: Offensive Tackle
Ht/Wt: 6’6" / 300 lbs.
Location: West Valley – Yakima, WA (2015)
Offers: Oregon, South Carolina, Arizona State, Arkansas, Boise State, East Carolina, Miami, NC State, Washington State, California, Georgia State, Idaho, Louisville, Michigan, Purdue, Utah
Rating: ★★★ .8517 (247 Composite)
Ranking: #770 NAT  (247 Composite)
FILM

Michigan hasn’t recruited the state of Washington a lot but with new offensive coordinator Doug Nussmeier having ties to the state, that appears to be changing just a little bit. A few offensive linemen prospects have been offered from the evergreen state, one being Shane Lemieux. Lemieux is a big boy, already tipping the scales at around 300 lbs. and with that size and his versatility he could probably play guard or tackle at the next level. Shane participated in a track meet the day we spoke, one in which he placed first in the shot put, but he’s not just a typical big guy when it comes to his events. I asked him to expand on the type of athlete and football player he is.

Yeah, my meet went great, I took first in the shot! I do the 100m sometimes, but not in varsity meets, only in league meets. (laughs) I’ve run the 40 yard dash in 5.1. I like to model my play after Taylor Lewan and Kyle Long, especially Taylor because he plays tackle. I feel like I have all the traits he does because I am a long and strong left tackle who can explode off the line. I am athletic enough to block safeties when I have to, but I can also drop back in a pass set and go up against anyone. Considering that my high school runs the same type of offense upfront that Michigan does, he’s (Lewan) someone I look at.

Lemieux swore that the Michigan reference didn’t have to do with me. He says he definitely took notice of a player like Lewan on his own and realizes the type of opportunity a place like Michigan offers.

Looking at a player like Taylor Lewan and what he did at Michigan definitely carries some weight with me. Coach Funk really developed him and I feel like he could do the same with me.

Michigan has obviously gotten Lemieux’s attention, but there are plenty of other suitors that he has taken a liking to.

My recruitment is going pretty good. I’d have to say that Boise State, Oregon, Arizona State, South Carolina, and Cal have been showing me the most interest. Michigan and I have talked a bit before the offer but I am positive it will pick up now. As of right now I will have to say that Oregon, South Carolina, and Boise State are all in a tie for first, but my other top schools are Michigan, Arizona State, Miami, and Arkansas. They aren’t up there with Oregon and those others only because I haven’t visited. I know that Michigan will be up there because I have always been a fan.

Lemieux has an eclectic collection of high interests, but his desire to learn more about the Wolverines is strong.

I just want to see Michigan in person because I have never even been to the state. They just have so much tradition. I know about the 11 championships, their Heisman winners, the most games ever won. When I was little I started liking Michigan because their helmets really stood out. (laughs) I love those helmets! And they are just a really good team. I mean they won 7 games last year and that was considered a bad year for them. Two years ago they had an 11 win season and lost to a good South Carolina team by just a little bit. I like how they have such high expectations. I’ve also heard that Ann Arbor is a great college town. Not too big, not too small.

Lemieux obviously knows his stuff when it comes to Michigan history, but the Wolverines do appear to be playing catch up behind the three schools he mentioned and until he visits Ann Arbor that probably won’t change. Lemieux did mention Alabama and Wisconsin as very respectable programs he’d like to earn offers from as well.

Lemieux’s dad lives in Rock Hill, South Carolina, explaining his high interest in the Gamecocks, but his step-dad thinks that Michigan is “badass” and has spoken very highly of the Wolverines even before Shane earned his offer. The helmets, the history, and his step dad have all piqued Shane’s interest enough to put Michigan squarely on his map when it comes to visits and a decision.

I would like to commit before my first game next season. Once I commit I would probably still take my official visits though. I am very interested in Michigan but like I said, I want to see them before I really rank them among the schools I have visited. I plan on visiting Michigan June 22-June 24. Even still I would put Michigan in my top list right now.

Shane described himself as a blue collar kid just trying to get to the next level. He’s not going to have a problem doing that with a solid offer list already, but where he ends up seems to be pretty open.

------------------

THE VIBE

5 – Trending Blue
4 – Solidly in a top 2-3
3 – Contender in a top 3-7
2 – Among large (8-15) group under consideration
1 – Let’s see if he visits before we talk
0 – Passing interest or none

There’s no guesswork when it comes to Lemieux’s top three. Oregon, South Carolina, and Boise State are front runners for him right now, but if his trip to Ann Arbor materializes it sounds like Michigan could find itself squarely in the mix.

*I informed Shane about Coach Hoke’s visit policy once committed after he made his comment about post-commitment officials and he said he understood that approach. If Michigan jumps to the top of his list after a visit and he were to commit to Michigan, he said he’d re-think the idea.

Mandatory last name reference:

EDIT: I talked to Shane briefly today and he said that he did not plan on committing while in Oregon, it just sort of happened. He described it as very spur of the moment. He also said that a visit to Michigan is still a possibility. I doubt his recruitment is over, but his verabl to Oregon was definitely a surprise to me, and sounds like it may have been to Lemieux himself as well.

Pressure shift.

Despite being passive, Michigan was 23rd in INTs last year [Eric Upchurch]

Since Hoke has taken over, it seems the expectation / criticism has been largely focused on the offense. Since rich rod left the defense in shambles, hoke & mattison seem to have taken a bend don't break approach and largely been given a pass while they accumulate talent and experience. With most of the experience and talent on the defensive side of the ball this year, does the pressure to get it done and carry the team to victory shift?

-Dan

I balk at the idea that someone needs to be "given a pass" after turning what was literally the worst defense in Michigan history into the #17 total defense in a year and improving to 13th the next year before dipping to 41st. FWIW, in yards per play terms the Mattison defenses are 46th, 25th, and 41st—a narrative of drastic improvement in year one, another step forward in year two, and then a step back.

I wish that step back hadn't happened, too, but the defense ended up collapsing once it was putting Richard Ash and Nose Tackle Jibreel Black on the field against the top rushing team in the country and then facing Tyler Lockett in a dismal who-cares bowl game they had approximately zero chance of winning once Gardner was ruled out.

Against the rest of the schedule, the defense was good enough to win. They could have carried Michigan to victories against Penn State (1.9 yards a rush, 6.8 per pass), Nebraska (under 300 yards total O), and maybe even MSU (16 points through 3 Q) if the offense was extant. People jumping on the D are a lot like people saying SHANE MORRIS COULD START YOU GUYS: they're letting the unprecedentedly terrible running game color their perceptions of the rest of the team.

That said, yes, last year's D was frustratingly passive and with Michigan returning almost everybody of note (departures from the two deep are limited to Black, the underutilized Quinton Washington, and both Gordons) it is time to take a step forward from passable to very good or great. The offense is not going to get where it needs to be in one year, so if Michigan wants to have the kind of season that makes people think Hoke should be back it's up to the defense to hulk up.

The rivals. We must beat them. Or not.

Brian,

Can you talk me into a scenario where Michigan loses to both at MSU and at OSU this year and we call the season a success?

-Craig

Let's step back for a second. There was a thread on the board about the recent Angelique Chengelis article in which she predicted a 10-2 record with losses to MSU and OSU. As always, the thread was split between people going "lol more like 2-10" and people responding to folks that say "I'll be happy with 9-3" with:

Is this what we are now? A program with fans that are "pleased" with mediocrity.

YES! YES, THIS IS WHAT WE ARE NOW. I mean… Michigan had that one 11-2 year that they acquired by shooting the moon six times. Aside from that, Michigan's gone 3-9, 5-7, 7-6, 8-5, and 7-6. And that last 7-6 doesn't really encompass the true face-crippling misery that was last season.

So, yeah, there are a ton of seasons that include road losses to the two teams that met in the B10 championship game last year that seem like a success. 10-2 is obvious. 9-3… sheeeeeeit, I would take any 9-3 record any way any how right now, no questions.

Would it suck to lose yet again to OSU and MSU? Yes! Yes, it would be a kick right in the plaster of Paris. But we're not in a place where we can turn up our nose at anything resembling a fun season. Just getting to a place where I can think "hey, this offensive line might be good next season" is a success. That necessarily comes with some wins, but except in pissy fan ways I'm not sweating who they come against.

Updated minutes for basketball.

It's go time for Derrick Walton [Bryan Fuller]

Brian,

Can I get a prediction on next year's starting five?

Thanks!

Troy

Cleveland, OH

Three and a half of the spots are pretty obvious. The three:

PG: Derrick Walton
SG: Caris LeVert
SF: Zak Irvin

The half:

C: Mark Donnal/Ricky Doyle

Michigan might be able to spare some minutes for Donnal at the 4 depending on how foul prone those gentlemen are. Freshmen bigs ten to be very foul prone, so… yeah.

Even PF is not that confusing: it'll be split between Kam Chatman and DJ Wilson. Chatman will also get minutes filling in for LeVert and Irvin; Spike will get 10-15 minutes; Bielfeldt will be in the 0-15 range depending on how the other guys perform and if he can actually hit some of those threes that Beilein says are unstoppable in practice.

My guess at the minute breakdown now:

PG: Walton (30) / Spike (10)
SG: LeVert (35) / MAAR (5)
SF: Irvin (30) / Chatman (10)
PF: Chatman (15) / Wilson (25)
C: Donnal (25) / Doyle (10) / Bielfeldt (5)

MAAR over Dawkins is just a guess. I do think it'll be one or the other by crunch time since Beilein favors short rotations. It is possible that one of the two redshirts.

That's very young and skinny up front—four freshman and Bielfeldt is your frontcourt—but I'd put Michigan's backcourt up against anyone in the conference no problem.

But what about The Process?

I've seen a few stories about how young Team 135 will be. They all highlight the small senior class, but never get into The Process's impact on the class. In my opinion, the 2011 recruiting class was a mess largely because Dave Brandon waited until January to fire Rich Rod (and then spent a couple of days actually firing him). By the time Hoke was hired, there wasn't much time to put together a class. In your opinion, how big of a factor was The Process on this year's senior class?

-Raphy

Don't forget the song-and-dance with the planes and four or five days spent in an apparent effort to throw people off the scent of the most Michigan Man choice available.

We'll never know for sure whether or not Rodriguez was a dead man walking going into the bowl game, but I've heard from multiple people on that disastrous trip that everyone thought he was. This led to a widespread breakdown in order and the performance-type substance Michigan put out there. If there was any chance he'd be back before it, there was zero after. Brandon didn't hang the man swiftly or extinguish the idea he'd be gone, so Michigan got a month and a half of limbo during which Blake Countess inexplicably signed up and nothing else happened in recruiting. Hoke walked into the following recruiting class:

• DEFENSE: DE Chris Rock, DE Brennen Beyer, CB Delonte Holowell, CB Blake Countess, CB Greg Brown, LB Desmond Morgan, LB Kellen Jones
• OFFENSE: OL Tony Posada, OL Jack Miller, OL Chris Bryant (Bryant did commit after Hoke was hired but had been favoring Michigan for months beforehand.)

To this he added in the two or three weeks available to him:

• DEFENSE: DE Frank Clark, DE Keith Heitzman, CB Tamani Carter, CB Raymon Taylor, LB Antonio Poole
• OFFENSE: TE Chris Barnett, RB Thomas Rawls, RB Justice Hayes, QB Russell Bellomy, K Matt Wile.

Both ends of that class are equally subpar. Hoke's ten late adds produced Taylor, Clark, and Wile. There's a possibility that Hayes or Heitzman will contribute at a decent level this year; that is meh.

Given what we've seen from Hoke since, especially before Michigan's offense descended into awful unwatchability, you have to figure he would have done much better with the extra five weeks. He almost certainly would have found a tackle to replace Jake Fisher—he may have in fact held on to Jake Fisher—and found a tight end who was capable of staying on a college campus for more than three weeks. They may have found a better fit at QB than Bellomy, whose main asset was his mobility. And they would have gotten a better idea about a few guys who weren't likely to stick—I'm thinking about Posada mostly, by the time signing day rolled around some people were skeptical about his commitment level—and grabbed a guy to fill out the OL numbers.

So… it was significant. There is a reason schools don't wait until January to throw guys overboard, and Michigan is suffering through that this year.

Hi, everyone! Did I miss anything?

Oh, lots of things, you say? Well...

Nailed it. Back to your regularly scheduled recruitin' roundup.

KLS --> DTW

Brian passed along the unfortunate news last week that five-star CA WDE Keisean Lucier-South says UCLA is currently the school standing out to him. I'm back to bring you good tidings: Michigan will have their opportunity to change that when KLS officially visits Ann Arbor for the night game against Penn State:

It looks like KLS is goin to Ann Arbor on October 11th

— Keisean South (@KLSouth16) May 3, 2014

In even better news, 247's Steve Lorenz reports that Lucier-South could make it to campus this summer, too:

As we reported earlier this week, it's not likely to be the five-star's only visit to Ann Arbor, as he's looking to take an unofficial visit sometime this summer.

Receiving an official visit is promising; having a California recruit foot the bill for a cross-country unofficial visit even more so. While there's plenty of competition, not to mention the inherent difficulty of reeling in a touted Cali prospect, Michigan has to like where they currently stand with their top weakside DE target.

[Hit THE JUMP for a camp evaluation of 2016 commit Erik Swenson, the outlook for a pair of top targets on the O-line, where Michigan stands as several 2015 targets narrow their lists, and more.]

Viking Raids Chicago

Rivals held one of their camps in Chicago over the weekend, and Josh Helmholdt proclaimed 2016 OT commit Erik Swenson as the #5 offensive performer after he showed off his tantalizing potential ($):

Swenson came in with a target on his back as an early Michigan commitment and one of the biggest names in the state and he had a very good camp. He was physical, he used his arms effectively, moved his feet consistently and anchored well. He struggled a bit with outside pass rushes, but he won the majority of his reps, showed he has athleticism with his excellent size and flashed the potential that has him as one of the most coveted linemen in his class.

Recently offered 2015 IL WR/TE Miles Boykin earned the top spot, and he displayed enough speed and route-running ability that Helmholdt said you can "forget about" him playing tight end if he picks the right offense. Michigan could fit that bill; they're one of the schools recruiting him as a jumbo wide receiver, which is Boykin's stated positional preference.

Newsome Favoring Two, Burrell Hoping To Narrow List Soon

Four-star NJ OT Grant Newsome told 247's Clint Brewster that Michigan and Penn State currently stand out among his many offers, and he laid out his tentative visit plans for the summer ($):

“I’m going to get to Penn State and Michigan at least once this summer,” said Newsome. “Try to head down to LSU and Alabama as well, maybe Arkansas.”

While the presence of those SEC schools could be cause for concern, I'm more focused on him hinting at multiple visits to his two leaders. The general consensus is this is a Michigan-PSU battle with the Wolverines possibly ahead by a slim margin.

While Newsome looks to be Michigan's best bet at landing a blue-chip offensive tackle, he's not their only hope. Rivals national reporter Adam Friedman caught up with four-star VA OT Matthew Burrell, who said that Michigan's recent offer is one of a few that caused him to hold off from narrowing his list of top schools ($):

"Every time I'm getting ready to announce my top schools another big offer comes in," said Burrell. "First it was Michigan, then Florida and now it's Texas A&M. Marshall also offered the other day also. 

"I'll probably narrow down to 10 or 12," he said. "I have a top ten but there are these schools that I want to put in, pull out or rearrange them. When I get another big offer I have figure out what I'm going to do and it keeps pushing this further back. It's going to be so hard to say no to some of these schools."

Michigan may have entered the fray late, but Burrell still appears to be considering them strongly. Marshall... not so much.

More 2015 Updates

The Wolverines made the latest cut for two of their top linebacker prospects. Four-star IN ILB Darrin Kirklandreleased a top ten, in alphabetical order, of Kentucky, Michigan, North Carolina, Ole Miss, Oklahoma, Penn State, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia Tech, and Wisconsin.

Kirkland is slated to visit Ann Arbor on May 17th, and he's already been on campus multiple times, as recently as early April. Penn State and Tennessee appear to be the biggest threats in his recruitment; I just put in a Crystal Ball prediction for Michigan based on his past and scheduled visits.

Four-star UT OLB Osa Masina put the Wolverines in his top eight along with Arizona State, Notre Dame, Stanford, UCLA, USC, Utah and Wisconsin. Michigan made a big move for him at last year's BBQ at the Big House and he's expected to visit for the same event in July, per Steve Lorenz ($).

Four-star CT TE Chris Clark, who named Michigan as his leader after a brief commitment to UNC, tweeted that he'll announce his decision at The Opening, the invite-only Nike camp that runs on the weekend of July 5th. Guarded optimism is the name of the game here. It's great that Clark thought so highly of the Wolverines following visits to Ann Arbor, Columbus, and South Bend. He's also the type of prospect who seems blown away by every subsequent trip, however, and with more visits planned—including a return to Notre Dame—it wouldn't surprise at all if the top of his leaderboard changes before his decision.

Three-star RB T.J. Simmons doesn't hold a Michigan offer yet, though he has quite the impressive list given his current ranking. After a visit from Fred Jackson, he put Michigan in his top five anyway, and told GBW's Josh Newkirk that an official visit is in the cards ($):

With the Maize & Blue now in his top-five, Simmons says he would “definitely” like to make an official visit to Ann Arbor, Mich.

...

Currently, Simmons says his top-five in no particular order is Florida, UCLA, Clemson, Ohio State and Michigan. He has been on campus visits to Auburn, Clemson, Florida, Florida State, Miami (Fla.) and UCF. He said he plans on taking visits to Ohio State, Kentucky and UCLA this summer.

Simmons said Michigan is planning to visit him again in a couple weeks, and he's hoping an offer comes at that time. While it's always tough to pull recruits out of Florida, entering a prospect's top five despite being the only school included that hasn't offered is a sign of serious interest. 

Pair Of 2016 Offers

Word on the Twitters is that Michigan offered two 2016 prospects over the weekend. Four-star FL SDE Jordan Woods picked one up, per his high school associate head coach. He already holds offers from Florida State, Florida, Georgia, Miami (YTM), UNC, and Virginia, among several others.

Michigan also offered highly sought Washington DC OG Richard Merritt, whose offer sheet includes the likes of Alabama, Auburn, Florida State, Florida, Miami (YTM), Michigan State, and Virginia Tech, as well as interest from Oregon and Penn State—two schools that he's tweeted he hopes to land offers from. Speaking of tweets, Merritt seemed excited about the U-M offer:

MICHIGAN OFFERED TODAY

— Richard Merritt (@_58thegreat) May 2, 2014

Merritt is not Delonte Hollowell or The Key Play, so an ALL-CAPS pronouncement can be taken as a good sign.

Etc.

James Franklin is kinda brilliant despite appearing to be a hyperactive lunatic, and I'd expect a whole lot of top programs are going to copy this blueprint:

New Penn State [coach] James Franklin and his entire staff will work as guest coaches for Trent Miles Football Camp at Georgia State on June 10.

The radical arrangement appears to be a win-win for both programs: Penn State gets to personally evaluate high school players who would never travel to its camps in Pennsylvania, while Georgia State will get exposure to more high-profile recruits than normal.

As Georgia State's coach explains in the article, this is an ingenious workaround of NCAA rules; while a school can't host a camp outside of their state*, coaches can work at another school's camp. It's not at all uncommon for small-school coaches to help out at camps of FBS schools, but this appears to be unprecedented, not to mention mutually beneficial.

Scout's Allen Trieu posted a free article on Cass Tech's loaded (as usual) secondary in which Technician defensive coordinator Jermain Crowell—no, not the former Lion—says that rising junior Lavert Hill, younger brother of Michigan safety Delano Hill, is "going to be the best guy I've ever coached." That's mighty high praise considering the talent Cass Tech has produced in the secondary over the last several years and the early returns on Jourdan Lewis.

If you missed it yesterday, Brandon posted an update on Michigan's latest 2015 offer, WA OT Shane Lemieux.

-----------
*With a 50-mile radius exemption for programs near a state border.

NEXT UP

But have you thought about Tokyo? Assertions abound that the Big Ten might fling a conference tournament to DC:

Hearing the Big Ten Tournament will be moved out of Indianapolis and to Washington DC for at least one year. Disappointing. #iubb

— Justin Albers (@Justin_Albers) May 4, 2014

That would be convenient for Maryland fans and the expat lawyers Big Ten schools fling to major metropoli across the country. Not so much anyone else who cares about basketball—the only other schools within one BILLION miles of DC are Penn State and Rutgers. But we must #footprint and #footprint and #footprint until our #footprints are #footprinted across the land.

All right. The Big East and Big Ten have announced one of those challenge-like things, though this one is partial:

The Big Ten and the Big East on Monday will announce a new partnership, the Gavitt Tipoff Games, an annual series of eight games between the two conferences that will run through 2020.

All of these games will come in the first week of the season, a time generally reserved for Michigan versus Five Guys We Found On A Farm, Yes We're Pretty Sure They're People. Every Big Ten team will participate at least four times in the eight-year deal. (That leaves eight free slots over the eight years, FWIW.)

Thanks, I guess. Corn Nation points out a thing:

Q: How will the seeding committee determine which teams play in which semifinal?

A: In theory, priority will be given to placing the No. 1 seed in the bowl geographically closest to its campus. For instance, if Florida State is No. 1, it would play in the semifinal at the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans, which would send the No. 2 team to the Rose Bowl.

So the CoFoPoff acknowledges that being close to home is a nice thing. Wonderful. Let's envision a scenario where Purdue finishes the year #1 to the committee. They get slotted in…

uh…

Atlanta! Congratulations, Purdue.

Corn Nation's not too happy about that:

TRADITION! was the battle cry for Delany, the world "tradition" meaning "bullshit most of you will still buy" as any pretense that college football is about money has been swept away by more, more, more of it. TRADITION! - even though the Big Ten expanded with Nebraska, Rutgers and Maryland throwing out decades of tradition - but Delany knowing that all those alums from Michigan and Ohio State and et al would buy into "tradition" because they've been eating that Rose Bowl bullshit so long that they don't realize what low-grade bullshit it is.

Hey man don't look at me I was advocating home sites just like everyone else from the #footprint that offered an opinion.

Draft projections. With the deadline passed, people get serious about their mock drafts. Results are good for Stauskas:

"Stauskas seems to be garnering more and more buzz of late," Ford wrote. "His abilities as a shooter with deep range and a quick release are unquestioned. It's his ability to also play a little point guard that has moved him into the lottery. This is the highest he has been ranked on our Big Board, and I don't think it's out of the question that he could go even higher when all is said and done. The Sixers, Nuggets, Wolves and Suns are all options in the lottery."

Robinson's hanging on to the end of the first round on Ford's draft but not DX; Chad Ford and DX don't have McGary in the first round. I have to believe that as it gets late in that first round some good team is going to think they could use a pile of rebounding and enthusiasm who's at least going to be a good player.

Good idea. I give it ten seconds to live. Penn State is going to visit Georgia State's camp en masse this summer:

New Penn State James Franklin and his entire staff will work as guest coaches for Trent MilesFootball Camp at Georgia State on June 10.

The radical arrangement appears to be a win-win for both programs: Penn State gets to personally evaluate high school players who would never travel to its camps in Pennsylvania, while Georgia State will get exposure to more high-profile recruits than normal.

This is an end-around of NCAA rules that prohibit folks from having a camp outside their home state unless it's within 50 miles of campus and will probably get nerfed the next time someone comes around with the rule stick. Clever idea for now, though.

BONUS: That article contains a quote that NCAA lawyers trying to flog competitive balance in court are going to hate:

“We’re not going to recruit the same person, you know? There’s no way. The Sun Belt doesn’t recruit against Penn State. Let’s face it: I’m not competing for kids against Penn State, or Georgia and Alabama. I’m just not. Nor will we ever. It is what it is."

/NCAA lawyer hits self in face with already-empty bottle of whiskey

Coleman can get buckets

AAU business. The annual Spiece tournament is going on in Indianapolis, featuring a number of Michigan targets. The most prominent is IN SG Jalen Coleman, who is still in no hurry to come to a decision:

When asked for an updated list of schools, Coleman rattled off Indiana, Purdue, NC State, Providence, UCLA, Arizona, Michigan, Michigan State and noted that several other Big Ten schools are also involved.

He didn’t name a leader, a top group or even mention that any schools are recruiting him harder than others.

In actual news, IL PG Jalen Brunson has cut his list to eight; Michigan is one. Temple, Villanova, Kansas, UConn, Illinois, Michigan State, and Purdue. If one of those programs doesn't look like it belongs, Brunson's dad played at Temple. "But that doesn't explain Purdue," you exclaim, and I agree.

I don't know but probably not right now. Ross Fulton asks if Doug Nussmeier can fix Michigan's offense, detailing his history. It starts off with an involuntary moan from you:

Nusmmeier's primary plan to solve the situation is to bring a coherent offensive framework to Michigan.

Sounds like a plan, you guys.

We must destroy this buck in order to save it. Via Get The Picture, the NCAA has earmarked some funds for legal stuff this year:

For example, NCAA finances are as difficult to sort through as the numbers are high, and the figures can vary hugely with the bias of those reporting them. Most media outlets glibly equate “unionization” and “compensation” with professional salaries for NCAA athletes, but the association knows Huma isn’t pursuing any such thing. The only big number that concerns him is the $600-plus million announced as this year’s NCAA war chest for legal and legislative expenditures.

Six hundred million dollars available to defend amateurism. Meanwhile non-profits try to fill in the gaps left when dudes get spine injuries.

Etc.: Recruiting folks did rather well by this year's projected first round. Mmmm anti-SEC conspiracy theories. NCAA unionization gets a congressional hearing. I welcome the departure of teams that should not be in D-I from D-I. Eastern Michigan, looking at you. Michigan spends money on things. Lax got competitive this year.

read option [Fuller]

I am determined this spring to mine every possible stat for every possible insight. This week I delved into quarterback rushes. Not sacks. I wanted to know which offenses tended to have their quarterbacks take off, or planned runs for them into their game plans.

Baseline: here's Michigan and their opponents last year. Sacks and yardage lost to them are not counted, but I couldn't tell from scrambles and QB sneaks, or stuff like if he took off for 10 yards on 3rd and 15 that defenses are happy to give up:

Indiana, Nebraska, Northwestern, Ohio State, and Kansas State ran option games. Minnesota's offense was QB power running (thing it is like: Michigan's 2010 offense when Rodriguez gave up on trying to make Denard into a zone reader). According to the UFR database Minnesota quarterback running plays vs Michigan were as follows: 7 QB powers; 2 draws; 2 zone read keepers; a false zone arc sweep thing, a QB sneak, and 7 scrambles.

The stats can't tell the difference between this kind of offense and a dedicated Richrodigan spread 'n shred. There aren't many teams who run this as their base offense, as simple as it may be, but a lot of teams have a mobile change-of-pace quarterback and a small package built around him. Notable teams who deployed a second guy:

I included Rutgers to show Chas Dodd wasn't a Drew Henson-ian run threat except in comparison to Gary Nova.

[Jump: Okay spread zealots, do teams with running QBs have an advantage?]

Is an offense where the quarterback's a run threat inherently better?

The operating principle behind QB power and option offenses is if the defense has to account for your quarterback as a run threat, that opens up room for other players to operate. It should follow that teams who use their quarterbacks as regular run threats will have an appreciable advantage in offense over those who don't. Apologies to the spread zealots: very much no. Here are last year's FBS teams by % of plays by their QBs that not passes or sacks:

Warm colors are teams whose quarterbacks ran enough to be considered a likely threat, with the scattered red dots to the right representing the committed option teams. You'll note there's almost no difference. An r-squared of 0.0008 is a big strong "there is no correlation" between how often you run with your quarterback, and how good you are at accruing yardage.

Again, hard to tell if that's "my quarterback will scramble" or "I put some option in my offense." Michigan State and Florida State have different offenses but had almost exactly the same QB-will-run ratings. The difference was FSU had the Heisman winner at quarterback and MSU floundered until they settled on a freshman and playing safe-ball with him.

What I can't account for here is the talent on hand. Ohio State had all the right parts (senior offensive line, all-conference skill players) to make their offense very dangerous. They were joined in the ranks of 7+ YPA by "my QB will run sometimes" offenses in Baylor, Oregon and Texas A&M, but that blue dot all the way on the left is pro-style Alabama. What those teams had in common was great offensive players. Miami (No not THAT Miami) ran their QB more often than the Buckeyes, but had terrible offensive players and thus the second-worse offense in the country.

But maybe it cuts down on turnovers?

I also looked to see if running with your quarterback will lead to more scoring (because the safeties have to run support?) or less scoring (because more defenders are between the ball and the goal line?). Also I tried the Woody-Bo belief that taking away throws to have your quarterback tuck and run will cut down on turnovers. To account for fumble randomness I used all fumbles by the offense and halved them, then added interceptions. Result:

No. Friggin. Difference. Maybe a tiny bit on the turnovers but an r-squared of 0.0903 says there's very little correlation.

Ask Rutgers Athletic Director Julie Herrmann is a syndicated column found in newspapers across the country. Universal Syndication, Inc., is not responsible for the content, opinions, punctuation, or ethics espoused in this column. Ask Rutgers Athletic Director Julie Herrmann should not be relied upon for advice. She threw volleyballs at us until we let her do this. Please, someone stop her. We need… a hero.

Dear Rutgers Athletic Director Julie Herrmann,

Hi! I'm a journalism student. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, I'm ready to take on the world. Where do you think I should apply for a job?

-Go-Getter

GG, I hope you die. I hope you die in a tower of fire a thousand feet tall, writhing in agony as I watch. I'll throw volleyballs at you even though I know they'll be incinerated by the tower of flame before they reach you because I just love throwing volleyballs at people, cackling madly as your body burns to a cinder. You'll smell of crisp pork; I will start salivating involuntarily; after you have vaporized I will go get barbecue.

Good luck in your search.

Dear Rutgers Athletic Director Julie Herrmann,

I seem to be having trouble making my offensive line do anything at all. They just sit there, wondering what to do, and I fear that if they do not improve I will be fired. What's the best way to motivate your charges?

-BH

BH, I've always found that aggressive leadership paves the way to success. If they do not respond to simple commands, taunting people about their probably-very-real learning disabilities inspires action. Nobody wants to be the team Lenny. I assume the pillar of flame is out since you need these people to save your ass, so if that doesn't work try calling them alcoholics and whores. (Note: "whores" is mostly effective against women, so you may want to change it up for men. Try "sea buffalo crack baby," "the Antichrist except stupid," or "Charlie Weis.")

If these motivational tactics don't work, wholesale purges are necessary. My "lawyers" have forced me to cut this paragraph down from 15000 words of detailed instruction, so in lieu of the master plan please just google "Joseph Stalin wiki."

Dear Rutgers Athletic Director Julie Herrmann,

We have experienced a tragedy in our family that has left one of our sons disabled but defiant. An inspiration to all who meet him, we were looking for the best way to publicize his story, so he can live his life as he might have if his legs had not been so cruelly taken from him. Advice?

-Persisting Through Pain, The Parent

PTPTP, I have a terrific idea. As athletic director of Rutgers University I have some not-insignificant pull around here. Why doesn't your son come in and give a commencement speech to our graduates? Great! We are all agreed. Let's just get this contract signed and then…

/yoink

…oh, sorry about that, must have been a gust of wind. Let's just get this contract signed and then…

/yoink

…getting a little impatient here, PTPTP, we're going to have to get this done pretty soon…

/yoink

…HAHAHA he's sooooo slow it's like he doesn't even have a spiiiiine

…

Hey, do you guys want to donate?

Dear Rutgers Athletic Director Julie Herrmann,

I crave your very presence. I need you in my life, Rutgers Athletic Director Julie Herrmann. I need your great giant… demographics. I think about tenderly stroking your skyscrapers. No, Julie, no. Don't tell me about Rutgers. Tell me about the world.

-Certainly Not Jim Delany

I may have some sort of disease that makes me incapable of perceiving the appropriate thing to say in any social situation, CNJD, but even I know enough to not talk about the various accomplishments of Rutgers athletics to someone interested in having Rutgers athletics in their conference.

Dear Rutgers Athletic Director Julie Herrmann,

For years I have been plagued with voices that I know are not real but tell me to do and say unspeakable things to the people around me. I worry that one day I will no longer be able to distinguish reality from fiction and do something terrible, but I also fear that revealing my disease will get me fired from my job and accelerate my downward spiral. What should I do?

-Hearing Voices

HV, I have it on good authority that Rutgers will be looking for a new athletic director soon and you sound like the perfect candidate.

Even after his meteoric rise from unheralded three-star to coveted five-star, Glenn Robinson III was never the centerpiece. In John Beilein's 2012 recruiting class, Mitch McGary commanded the most attention. In Michigan's offense over the following two seasons, Trey Burke and Nik Stauskas were the focal points. Playing a game in which the object is to put the ball through the hoop, Robinson was notable for how rarely—and briefly—he touched the rock.

He waited on the periphery, and when the opportunity arose, he struck with such suddenness and forcefulness that even if you forgot he was on the court, you were sure to leave the game talking about whatever he just did. One moment, he was a 30% three-point shooter standing harmlessly in the corner. The next, some unsuspecting defender was attempting to discard a 6'6", 220-pound hat with ill intentions.

Robinson's ability to make these lightning strikes look effortless belied the skill required to execute them. Correctly timing a cut requires not only reading the defense, but also your teammates—a foray to the rim is worthless if the cutter and passer aren't on the same page, and a poorly timed one can ruin the offense's spacing.

[Hit THE JUMP because of excessive entirely necessary GIF usage.]

GRIII's knack for knifing along the baseline at just the right moment proved the ideal complement for the on-ball creation of the stars in Michigan's backcourt, and nobody knew this better than the man who recognized his talent back in the under-the-radar three-star days:

Later, Beilein added, “It’s just, getting him comfortable in some action that he’s really comfortable with. One of those things is flying around and being a slasher and a burner. That’s what he’s really good at -- really good at. I think he’s the best off-the-ball cutter anywhere around. So we’re trying to do a lot of that with him.”

Denzel Valentine would probably agree. Ditto Austin Hollins, Okaro White, and the entirestate ofPennsylvania. If you set foot in the Crisler Center over the last two years, odds are good that the moment you let your mind drift, a thunderclap at the rim snapped you back to attention, much like the guy who just unwittingly ended up on Sportscenter.

Robinson's offensive arsenal wasn't limited to cutting and dunking, of course. Michigan boasted a lethal transition offense in large part because he traversed the court in a flash, and even if a defender held on for dear life there was no stopping him. Perhaps because so many of his shots were uncontested, Robinson never got the credit he deserved for finishing at the rim through contact, whether on the break or in the halfcourt.

And if he ever got into the open court? Well, things got exquisite.

Really exquisite.

While his classmate and teammate, Nik Stauskas, turned Not Just A Shooter™ into a meme, Robinson could never shake a similar, more limited reputation as Just A Dunker. For a player who came to Michigan with raw athleticism and an otherwise narrow offensive skill set, this wasn't fair. From the same article linked above comes another quote from Beilein, who was looking for a way to get GRIII more involved in the offense early this season:

“Glenn has been a residual player since the day he’s walked in here,” Beilein said. “It’s not a thing that all the sudden he’s going to become this immediate ballscreen player that is just -- the Tim Hardaway jumpshot (inaudible) -- he’s just not there yet and he’s working at it and he won’t stop.”

By Big Ten season, the "Tim Hardaway jumpshot" became a reliableoption, one of Michigan's best ways to exploit the middle of defenses spread thin to cover the corner gunners.

Robinson worked his tail off to improve that shot, just as he did on those corner threes—much to the approval of Charles Woodson—as well as his defense, strength, and already ridiculous athleticism. By the end of his short collegiate career, the weight room became GRIII's House.

For a player who made regular appearances on the Top Ten Plays, however, Robinson's most important contributions often went overlooked. Ask the average Michigan fan to name his greatest play and you're likely to hear about a spectacular dunk (namely the GR360) or the game-winner against Purdue; the latter, admittedly, deserves serious consideration.

If I had to encapsulate Robinson's Michigan career, however, I'd go back to the 2013 Elite Eight against Kansas. Everybody remembers The Shot, as well they should. Forgotten are two plays that made Trey Burke's shining moment possible.

The first came with Michigan down ten points on defense with 2:30 to play, a near-hopeless situation against any team, let alone a top-seeded defensive juggernaut. Tim Hardaway Jr. had just missed two shots on the other end, sandwiched around a Robinson offensive rebound that went for naught. Then Hardaway and Trey Burke trapped Kansas's Elijah Johnson on the wing, and when Johnson lobbed a pass to seven-footer Jeff Withey at the top of the key, Robinson exploded off the court to tip the ball, chase it down, and dunk it home with a statement: We ain't dead yet.

The second occurred just two possessions before Burke's bomb, when a Hardaway attempt to cut the lead to two missed the mark and led to a furious scramble for the rebound. What went into the box score as an offensive rebound and made layup doesn't exactly do the play justice:

Robinson picked up the ball and, by virtue of his position, was instantly trapped on the baseline by Withey, the fifth-best shot blocker in the entire country that season. Showing a cool beyond his year, Robinson turned, planted, and contorted his body just enough to shield Withey and flip in an improbable reverse layup.

After the two teams traded two-point possessions, Burke pulled up from El Paso. Robinson stood in the corner, just doing his job. Any memory of his critical stretch run, at least for the time being, disappeared into the ether as ball met twine.

Like any player, especially such a youthful one, Robinson had flaws in his game. Those flaws were only magnified when seen through the scope of expectations, especially when contrasted with the finely tuned craftsmanship of Burke and, the next year, Stauskas.

While the critics always pointed out what his game lacked, however, Robinson's integral contributions to a national runner-up as a freshman and the most efficient offense in KenPom history as a sophomore were either overlooked or brushed off as the product of a gifted athlete just using his God-given ability.

Next season, when Michigan is looking for someone to work around the edges, perhaps we'll appreciate more about GRIII than the skills he brought with him to Ann Arbor, because when he left, he took with him a whole lot more.

xkcd. it's funny because SCIENCE okay?

As the Rigelians informed us, basketball it turns out is the universe's favorite sport. Of the trillions of basketball leagues worthy of broadcast, the most incompetent is Lockeceles VI's "Internashunil Assosiation of Basketball Playig and Shoving Sharp Objects Into Our Eyes [sic]," [sic] best known for their ruling that the Targavian Turnips should have to play an entire season hopping on one leg and bent sideways after a local columnist accused the Turnips' frontcourt of not hustling. Fortunately for the players, Targavia was a city entirely made up of chiropractors, so nobody's life was ruined. The season was of course a disaster.

If the NCAA just claimed the refs were getting too expensive we would have believed it.

The second most feckless basketball league in the universe is, of course, Earth's "National Collegiate Athletic Association," which recently challenged the IABPSSOIOE[sic]'s title by issuing a one-year (effectively life) suspension to an injured player who tested positive for a recreational, performance-reducing substance that everyone uses.

You may ask what were they smoking at the time, but that would appear rather obvious.

Alas, the burden of picking up the pieces shall fall upon the TV camera crews at Crisler, who must find a way to shoot the games without broadcasting all of those extended middle fingers, and the Michigan Wolverines Basketball team, who'll have to figure out how they're supposed to rebound anything. And it shall fall upon the MGoBloggers to inform you how that will go down:

The cagers are suddenly without a front court. Has Michigan slid back to pack for now or is this all just a setup for the Beilein Little Shooters Magnum Opus? What's your take on Donnal? Can we do this without becoming a study on Bielfeldt anatomy?

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Ace: CALVES CALVES CALVES CALVES CALVES

Sorry, Dan Dakich briefly took control of my keyboard, but I just tweeted that Aaron Craft is signing autographs at the mall, so I think I shook him off. (What mall? Doesn't matter. Dan Dakich will find it.)

I don't think I'm going out on a limb in saying that it's a stretch to hope for the level of success the program has enjoyed these past two seasons given the lack of depth up front, but hopefully we're all aware of that reality at this point. Luckily, it should be a relative down year in the Big Ten, and if anybody can adjust to life without enough viable big men, it's John Beilein.

Save us, abnormally large triceps surae!

In all likelihood, I think Michigan is going to have to rely on Donnal living up to the hype—and given the recent track record of heralded practice players having their success translate to games, I think he'll be solid—and hope that Kam Chatman adjusts quickly enough to the college game that his rebounding acumen shows up early. Unless there's a surprise, that should be the starting frontcourt, and while they lack a real defensive presence at the rim, that hasn't stopped Michigan from being successful recently. With their ability to spread the floor on the other end, I'm excited to see how Beilein's offense evolves for this year's lineup, too.

UNPOPULAR OPINION ALERT: There's also a distinct chance we're sleeping on Bielfedt. He's actually been a pretty solid rebounder, especially offensively, in the (admittedly very limited) minutes he's played so far in his career. I realize he looked overmatched when thrown into the fray against MSU in the Big Ten title game, but that was a tough situation to be seeing his first significant minutes since non-conference play, to say the least.

I was surprised to see Brian's latest guess at the rotation, which had Bielfeldt getting just five minutes a game as the team's third center. I'm far more skeptical that a pair of three-star true freshmen are going to be ready to see significant time, let alone worthy to play over someone with three years of practice experience against a group of solid Big Ten bigs and some actual game experience. Having upperclassmen big men is a luxury—just look at the respective developments of Jordan Morgan and Jon Horford—and my guess is Bielfeldt's rebounding, familiarity with the system, and physical maturity will earn him ~15 minutes a game, and those minutes won't be as hair-raising as seemingly everyone expects.

In the end, though, my instinct is to sit back, try not to worry about the whole situation, and remember that Beilein went 13-5 in the Big Ten with a 6'4" dude at power forward. Michigan may not be a national title contender—my, how expectations change—but I fully expect them to compete for another conference title with all that talent in the backcourt.

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Ace again: Crap. Of all the typos, I had to pull "sleeping on Bielfedt." From now on, I'm just calling him CALVES.

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Brian:

Re: CALVES CALVES CALVES: I just can't see Bielfeldt holding up against legit 6'10" guys at his size--which is 6'6". If he actually hits the threes he inexplicably takes and inexplicably seems to have the green light for, I can see him as a stand-in-the-corner 4 against certain matchups, but with him the question is always "who is he going to guard?" Though the freshmen are green, they are significantly larger in all areas that are not calves, and it is clear who they will guard. I can see Bielfeldt getting time against certain players--Nigel Hayes, Branden Dawson--who are smallish post types. Against the Kaminskys and even Costellos of the world not so much.

Having grown-up bigs is nice.

Re: Sliding back to the pack. Yes, I think they are back in the pack. With McGary they are co-favorites with Wisconsin; now they're in a group of folks chasing. (That group: Iowa, Nebraska, Michigan, and probably OSU--OSU is going to be an entirely different team this year.) Michigan does seem to have a ceiling now that they did not in the event of a hypothetical McGary return. I think that ceiling is annoying undersized team that gets booted in the second round* or Sweet 16... unless they somehow maintain the ludicrous efficiency they had this year. Michigan got pounded on the boards by three straight opponents and it still took a miserable contested three from a mediocre shooter to knock them out. That seems unlikely since 1) Michigan was the best offense in the history of Kenpom last year, 2) they have lost two probable first round picks from that team, and 3) things like Trey Burke and Nik Stauskas freshman to sophomore transitions just don't happen that often.

Yeah, if it's going to happen to anyone it's going to happen to kids Michigan has, but I'm not expecting LeVert or Walton or Irvin to become an All-America caliber guy, because that's silly. Reasonable expectations for Michigan's offense are to be really good but backslide significantly from back-to-back #1s, and then you're relying the defense to be a lot better with zero experienced players over 6'6". It could happen; I'm not banking on it.

Re: Donnal. I was very much looking forward to Donnal playing the 4, as he is a skilled guy with pick and pop ability who would have given Michigan real size on the other end of the floor. But it sounds like Donnal was not prepared to play there even in the event of large men returning--Bacari said he would guard the five until "his lateral quickness and conditioning improve"--so not that much has changed, especially if Horford felt that he was going to get passed. I think he'll be great for Michigan's offense, as he has a terrific face up game and can drag bigs to the perimeter like Payne and Kaminsky did last year. That opens up driving lanes for Walton and LeVert, and you know Beilein is a guy who can take advantage of his unique offensive skills.

I assume he'll be a wreck defensively as a relatively below-the-rim freshman (yes yes the dunk video is nice but if a guy as skilled as Donnal was an above the rim player he'd already be in the NBA), as will Doyle, and therein will be the major issue.

*[The actual second round, not the first round.]

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Seth: Brian hit on all of my points. Donnal came in for high offensive praise late last year, but even then wasn't a threat to un-redshirt. He could grow into a really good player as soon as 2015-'16 but that's not this year.

Courtney Sacco|AnnArbor.com

Michigan wasn't ever a really good defensive team, but they had enough to get by when they were breaking Kenpom's offensive records. You can squint and see progression from Walton/LeVert/Irvin and maybe a freshman of the year season from Chatman making up for Stauskas and Robinson, but the center spot just became the 2010 defensive backfield with better coaching.

I ran down the Kenpom teams to find a team with a good backcourt and a young and small frontcourt (I though of Providence but they had senior Batts and a 7-foot junior behind him) and came up with Georgia State:

This team was 23rd in adjusted offense and 144th in defense. They struggled a ton in the non-conference, walked through the Sun Belt until losing to LA-Lafayette in overtime in the conference semis, then went out in the first round of the NIT to Clemson. Cal, Georgetown, and Indiana were ranked around them.

That's what Michigan looks like if Donnal is the scorer we're hearing about…er…and he rebounds better than J-Mo (who was 12.9/19.0). If there was ever an opportunity to test this score-score-score theory of modern basketball, Beilein and the squad with no centers is a good enough scenario. Upside is barring a LeVert/Walton explosion a la Stauskas/Burke, they'll all be back the following season.